This was the route I ended up riding. LIke I said in the previous caption. The first half of the trip was right on target with my initial plans. But when I hit the deer just North of San Francisco, my trip plans went out the window. After waiting a month for the motorcycle repairs to get completed, the Southern and final leg of this map was dictated by incliment weather in the Rockies and the devastation left behind by Katrina in the South.

This was the route I laid out at the start of my trip. I had planned so see an awful lot more of the country than I got to. About the first half of this map is accurate, but the second half was completely changed by hitting the deer on October 2 and the ensuing month of waiting for repairs to my motorcycle to get completed.

Day 201, Friday, December 23

Today was the last day of my trip. I can’t really wrap my head around the fact that the trip is over. I’m sure I’m going to go through a huge culture shock as I try to return to the work-a-day world.
Parting from the Nusbaums, I headed over to Marietta, GA (an Atlanta suburb) for an oil change. The drive over was uneventful, but I found myself extremely annoyed at the gridlock as I headed into Atlanta. Somehow this gridlock was more annoying than the gridlock I encountered in LA. Here the drivers within the gridlock seemed to be individually worse drivers than the ones in LA. Leaving the dealership, I got rear ended by a huge delivery truck as I sat at an intersection. Needless to say I was definitely pissed off, even though the damage was very minimal (just a couple of small scratches on my trailer.) The driver claimed he couldn’t see my trailer, but he must have seen it because there was nobody in line behind me when I pulled up to the intersection. Sure he couldn’t see it when he was pulled up and shoving his front bumper into the back of it because it was below his hood line. But he damn well could have seen it if he’d been paying attention while he was pulling up behind me. Thankfully, there was absolutely no damage other than the two smallish scratches, so I gruffly told him he damn well needed to start looking for motorcyclists and drove off.
I’d hoped to get together with Mark Cederquist, see the entry from Glacier National Park, while in Atlanta, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get in touch with him so I decided to head on home.
From Marietta to my parents’ house in Brevard, NC, the drive was again uneventful, and I pulled into their driveway around 6:30. When I walked in the house, I found a note from my dad saying they’d gone out for dinner at the Pisgah Fish Camp, a nice family restaurant a few miles away. I was amazed, standing there in the front door of their house that it definitely didn’t feel like I’ve been gone for half of a year. It only felt like a weeks since I’d left.
I hopped back on the motorcycle and headed over to the restaurant to see Dad and Mom. They didn’t notice me walking in, so I was able to get all the way up to their table unnoticed. They were both very surprised when I said, loudly “Well are you just going to sit there are you going to offer your son some dinner?” It was great to see them, but exceedingly strange feeling to be joining them in a restaurant after so many days on the road.

My last memory of this bedroom was of Grandmother dying of cancer in her bed here. I had completely lost that memory until I opened the door. just looking at this picture still makes me remember how much it hurt to see her there. I got back so many amazing memories when walking through the house. Memories that I thought were long lost and possibly gone for ever.

My Aunt Emma's house (Grandpop's sister)

Looking at the house from the back. The shrubs are a lot taller and out of control than they were when I was last here, but other than that, little has changed.

Grandpops and Grandmothers old home at 315 Woodfield Drive, Auburn, AL. Some of my fondest childhood memories are here.

Day 201, Thursday, December 22

This is probably going to be one of the longest written entries of the entire blog. Today I revisited more memories from my childhood than I have in probably 25 years. Much of the stories won’t carry meaning to anybody other than my immediate family, but for me, the memories are such an important part of this trip that I have to write them down. Through out this odyssey, I’ve know that possibly the most important part of the entire trip for me would be visiting my Grandparents’ house in Auburn, AL because of the memories it would bring back. Today is that day, and thus today’s journal entry is going to be extremely long.
Dinner last night with the Perrys was a great experience. I’d only expected to see Bo and Mary Elizabeth, but to my surprise all three sons, Wade, David, and John were there also. As I mentioned before, the Perrys were good friends of my parents from our church, Government Street Presbyterian when we lived in Mobile. For a while, the Perrys lived just down North Reed Avenue from us but they moved a couple of miles away some time during my elementary school years. I enjoyed dinner and catching up with them and got some information from them about some childhood peers of mine that completely rescheduled my morning today.
When I was in elementary school, one of my best friends was a girl who lived across the street from the Perrys (one block down from my house.) I don’t remember how many years I knew Shannon Manz, but she and I went to school together for our 5th grade year. Last night, the Perrys told me that she’s back in Mobile working at a nursery/garden shop. This morning, on my way out of town, I stopped by for a short surprise visit with her. We had a great time catching up and replaying some old memories. The ride to and from Forest Hill Elementary school in the back of a neighbor’s old blue pick up truck, (The neighbor, Dixie Carlson had a son, Reve, who was in school with Shannon and me.) playing imaginary games in my front yard (many years before fifth grade). I also remember recess time at school when Shannon was both the tallest and fastest person on the field. Shannon had no idea she was my first childhood crush. Of course she didn’t, girls still had cooties back then! I parted company with Shannon leaving behind a commitment to get back in touch again with her and to stop by for a better visit next time I’m in Mobile.
From Mobile, I headed up to Auburn AL to visit the house where my maternal grandparents (Grandpops and Grandmother) lived and also the house where Grandpops’ sister, Aunt Emma, lived. The trip to Auburn was uneventful but the visit to Grandpops and Grandmother’s house was very emotional for me. I’ve not been back to that house since sometime between 1980 and 1982. 1980 was the year Grandmother died and 1982 was when Grandpops moved out of the house and down to South Florida to be with my soon-to-be step Grandmother. I knew visiting the house was going to be a powerful emotional trip for me but I didn’t know how powerful it was going to be.
The house, inherited by Uncle John, is now rented out to a young couple with a baby. When I pulled into the driveway, the wife (several years younger than I) was home with her baby and came out to see who’d pulled into the driveway. I told her who I am, that I’d not been back to the house since shortly after Grandmother died, and asked if she’d mind if I walked around the yard to take some pictures. She totally surprised me by asking me to come inside. I thought I’d prepared myself for the memories that would come back from seeing the outside of the house, but I’d definitely not prepared myself to see the inside of the house. I probably hadn’t taken more than two or three steps into the house when a huge flood of emotions and memories came back to me and I just broke down sobbing.
When grandmother died in 1980, the way my 3rd grade mind coped with the pain was, in essence, to put all my memories of her in boxes and store the boxes deep in a vault where they couldn’t be found. I literally had and still largely have no vivid memories of her other than memories of photographs of her that I’ve seen. I’ve tried to recall them, but they’re just hidden too well. Walking into the house was a HUGE trigger for me and brought back a bunch of the memories from that vault. It also brought back the pain I felt when she was dying of cancer and when she actually finally died. I even remembered where I was standing (in the bathroom at 14 North Reed) when Mom told me Grandmother had died. With that flood of memories coming back all I could do was to lean back against the door frame, bend down with my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees and sob until I thought I’d come to grips. Key word there is *thought.*
When that wave had passed, I walked back into what had been the two guest bedrooms and before that Mom and Uncle John’s old bedrooms. That wasn’t so bad, but what I’d definitely not prepared myself for was opening the door to what had been Grandpops and Grandmother’s bedroom. I didn’t even think twice about opening the door but as soon as I opened it, I suddenly realized what I’d done. While my eyes saw the room in its present state, my mind ignored what my eyes were seeing and painted the last memory I’ve got of that room: grandmother lying in the bed dying of cancer. That just about floored me. If I thought I’d broken down when I walked into the front door, this was a far bigger wave than the little first one I waded through. It took several minutes before I stopped crying. I think that if my childhood mind hadn’t obscured all the memories I was reliving that it might not have been so hard for me, but as it was, I was pretty much flailing in water way over my head.
I’ve got to wonder what the tenant thought, seeing me break into a sobbing mess after I walked into the house. “Is this man emotionally unstable?” or “Are my baby and I safe?” I don’t think so, though. Each time I broke down, I managed to explain to her, through my sobs and tears, what I was seeing and remembering. She was extremely understanding about it and told me I was about to make her cry also.
As I walked through the house, it was amazing to me how many little things brought back memories from my childhood. For instance, when I looked out the kitchen window onto the side yard, I saw a bird feeder placed in front of the window. Seeing that, I suddenly got back the memories of Grandpops filling the feeder that had been in the exact same location when I was a child.
By far, the strongest memory that came back to me, after walking into my grandparents old bedroom, came to me as I was about to walk out the back of the house. Between the kitchen and the back door of the house is a little windowless room with doors to the kitchen and to the back steps. As I reached for the door knob to walk into the room from the kitchen, I found I couldn’t bring myself to open it. That room was Grandpops study and pipe smoking room. He used to have a big dark desk on the left side of the room where he’d sit, smoke his pipes, and if we were lucky, blow smoke rings for my brother and me. Somehow, opening the door in my mind, I was convinced that I’d still see Grandpops sitting there at his desk, with his big fuzzy white beard, with his pipe hanging out of his mouth and that the room would still be full of the sweet smell of pipe smoke and tobacco. I could barely twist the handle. And yes, I was sobbing uncontrollably again as I finally did open it. In reality, the room had been converted to a laundry room and didn’t even bear any resemblance to the room of my memories. But what matters to me is that I got back the memories.
Outside, most of the memories weren’t so strong, but there were three that rocked me again. Grandpops and Grandmother had, at several places in their yard, planted Chinese Chestnuts. These trees bear their nuts in pods that look like sea urchins. Brown pods, several inches in diameter, absolutely covered in needle sharp brittle spines. Spines which, as kids running around the yard, we frequently managed to get lodged in our bare feet. Also, in the back yard, there were scuppernong (sp?) and muscadine grapes and a catalpa tree.
Walking out into the back yard through Grandpops’ old study, I immediately saw the grape vines and the catalpa tree and more memories came flooding back. As kids, eating the grapes was great, but it was the catalpa tree which was the REALLY cool back yard plant. You see, the Catalpa tree was attacked each year by caterpillars. Grandpops, who was a limnologist (look it up), was a professor in both the zoology and fisheries departments at Auburn University. As such he had access to the university’s farm ponds when other people didn’t, and catalpa caterpillars just happen to be incredibly good fishing bait. They’re apparently super tasty to the fish and they’re really tough so they don’t come off the hook. Grandpops would take us over to the ponds with cane poles for an afternoon of fishing for bluegills and collecting the crawfish out of the traps he’d set. My favorite picture of him, which I keep on the wall of my bedroom, is of him holding up a huge crawfish and one of those traps. Seeing the grape vines brought back those memories and I had to take a knee in the back yard. When I recovered from that, still kneeling down, I looked at the ground and saw the Chinese Chestnut burrs. That got me going again. As I mentioned, we used to get those spines lodged in our feet as kids, and it was Grandpops who would take one of his super sharp pocket knives and get the spines out for us.
Further into the back yard is the garage. Opening the door of the garage, I found it still smelled the same as it did in my childhood when Grandpops’ and Grandmother’s old VW station wagon was parked inside. Grandpops used to have his wood working shop at the back of the garage and I had to go back there to see if there was anything that would remind me of him. Grandpops had a penchant for labeling his workshop, indicating exactly where each of his tools, especially his wood carving chisels, went. While his tool cabinet was gone, sure enough, there on the wall was a picture he’d drawn of the chuck key for a drill press hanging from its cord with the label “Drill press chuck key here”. Somehow, knowing that Grandpops himself had drawn that reduced me to a sobbing mess again!
After taking some pictures, I hopped back on my motorcycle and headed over to the house where my Aunt Emma lived. My parents now own that house but my memories of it aren’t as strong as those of Grandpops and Grandmother’s house and the tenants weren’t home so I just took pictures from the front.
This evening I rode over to spend the night with some of my father’s close friends Nancy Nusbaum, her husband Ken, and their two young girls. Nancy is one of Dad’s best friends from when we lived in Ft Lauderdale. I’ve not seen Nancy for many years and don’t think I’ve ever met her husband or their kids. I joined them for dinner and had a wonderful visit with them. After dinner, Ken drove us all around Auburn for a short tour of Christmas light displays and of the university. I really enjoyed their company and will definitely keep in touch with them.

The Perrys and me. From left to right, David, Bo, me, Mary Elizabeth, and Wade. We had a great dinner and conversation.

Day 200, Wednesday, December 21

I spent most of the morning and a bit of the afternoon working on catching up on this journal. I’ve taken many pictures, but I’ve not done any writing since I left Peter’s house in San Diego. Trying to look back 15 days and recall what I did and what I was feeling definitely gets challenging.
Family friends from Mobile, the Perrys, have invited me to dinner this evening and I’m supposed to show up around 7:30. Apparently they’re early to bed people so later than that would definitely not be kosher.
After finishing my work on the journal (I wrote entries up through Dec 20) Aunt Penny invited me to go around with her to deliver the “neighborhood gifts”. That’s a concept I’ve not heard since we left Mobile back in 6th grade and it requires something definitely worth writing about and which I’ve not had since leaving Mobile. A sense of community. Uncle John and Aunt Penny have lived in the same basic area of town since Fall of 1979. They know everything about everybody there. Who the kids are, where they’re going to school, whom they’re dating, who’s said what about whom, etc. On top of that they’re good friends with just about all of their neighbors and often join the neighbors in their houses for cocktails after work. I can’t even conceptualize that. Since leaving Mobile, I’ve never lived anywhere that I had a community I could call my own. Granted, I wouldn’t trade my life experiences for someone who grew up entirely in one town. I’ve simply seen and traveled to too many different places to want to change a thing, but I often wonder what it would be like to be able to go back to the house my parents are living in and say “This is home. I grew up here.” Or maybe…”Mrs Brown, whom I’ve known for all of my life, was over visiting with my parents when….”. I simply don’t have anything I can relate to that way. Truly, the only place that’s remained constant in my life has been our family place, Happy Hollow, in the mountains of Western North Carolina. We vacationed at Happy Hollow every single year of my childhood and I’ve been back many times as an adulthood. If you drove me by Happy Hollow blind folded, I could tell you I was there simply from the wonderful smell.
But Happy Hollow is, however, a place, not a community. I don’t want it to sound like I’m complaining. I’m not. I definitely wouldn’t want to trade places with someone who’s grown up in only one place and hasn’t had the opportunities I’ve had to see different areas of the country. I’m quite happy to have the broader background, and I’ve made enough life long friends along the way to fill in where I need community. At this point, my hope is that wherever I end up after getting into my imminent job search, will be a place where I’m willing to invest myself emotionally, rather than just another address, like every place I lived in Florida, Minnesota, Ohio, and Illinois.
Larry Kachadourian suggested a week or so ago that I look into what I’ve felt along the trip and I think that’s a wonderful idea. Setting off on the trip, I really expected to have long periods of feeling lonely. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that’s not been the case. Sure I’ve felt lonely on occasion, and I’ve definitely missed the presence of a woman in my life. After all, I’ve not had the chance to date anybody since late last Winter. I also expected to feel disconnected (in a negative way) from society along with that loneliness. Thankfully, however, neither loneliness nor any feeling of melancholiness have been the prevailing feelings of this trip. I’ve found that I really enjoy the long stretches of solitude on the bike. They’ve given me lots of time to spend meditatively. Anybody who knows me knows that I basically never take time to mentally relax and just do nothing. I’ve always got a project going or am between activities. I’ve always felt I could rest after I’m buried or my ashes are scattered. On this trip, I can’t help but spend time examining who I am and where I feel I’m going in life. It’s a bit scary to really spend time thinking about that day after day after day. On the other hand, it’s made me very comfortable that my choice to ditch the “real world” for half a year was definitely the right choice at the right time.
As for loneliness, I hardly have time for it. It’s the rare time when I stop my bike and dismount when I don’t find myself having a conversation about some aspect of travel or interests with a stranger. I’d bet I’ve had less than a dozen times in the entire 200 days where I’ve pitched camp and not had great conversations with my neighbors. Anybody who’s read this journal has read about the incredible number of people who’ve extended me their hospitality. Whether the hospitality is in the form of a little kid coming over in the morning offering a fresh caught trout for breakfast, or of a large family gathering taking me in as one of their group and “forcing” me to eat melt-in-your-mouth peach cobbler, or people stopping me at gas stations or grocery stores and offering me, a complete stranger, the chance join a small part of their lives and stay with them for a while. I hate to sound clichéd but this trip has done a great deal towards restoring my faith about the decency of people, a faith which was, at best, put on hold while living in Chicago. Yes, I had LOTS of friends and acquaintances in Chicago, but in the 8 years I lived there I rarely felt the warmth from my acquaintances that I felt from so many complete strangers, now good friends, on this trip.
I tell everybody I meet on this trip that I’ve got to treat the trip like a once in a lifetime opportunity but that I hope dearly, having lived this experience, it won’t be the last. It’s also going to make me look differently at people in the future and take the risk to invite strangers in to *MY* life like people have done for me.

my motorcycle at Baytreat

The last time I was at Baytreat, this row of pilings was actually a dock that we used to play on and around.

Gov't St. Presb. Church's retreat "Baytreat" as seen from the beach. This hasn't changed one little bit since I was here in my childhood.

This is the ditch at Fearnway park where we used to play. Like I said in my journal entry, "ditch" hardly does justice to the magic our young minds assigned to it!

Government Street Presbyterian Church where we attended services the entire time we lived in Mobile.

Fearnway Park. We used to play here as kids and had lots of fun funning our toy cars and bicycles around the rim of the fountain.

The green painted concrete was the walk way around the pool and we'd have our birthday parties at picnic tables right where the diagonal strip of brown grass is now. Back then there were more trees here also.. I remember, as a kid, going around all of the trees looking for the shedded skins of cicada larvae. The skins look like little monsters. Here's a pictaure...http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/photos/new_zealand/images/cicada%20shell.jpg

Day 199, Tuesday, December 20

I rode over to Brookley this morning. When we lived here, Mom used to take us to Brookley to play on a section of beach adjoining the air field. As a child, I remember this beach being a wonder of life. We used to take our dip nets there and dip in the bay, and in a creek that empties across the beach into the bay, for sail fin mollies (a brilliantly colored minows with large, rainbow-colored, sail-like fins), fiddler crabs, and all manner of other brackish water life that magically decided to jump into our nets. Back then the beach, to my child hood mind, was beautiful and relatively clean. Now, after the storm, it’s dirty, covered with debris and broken glass and foul smelling. It’s no longer any place that’d be safe for kids to play. Near the beach there was a community center where we went to swim and sometimes have birthday parties under the sycamore trees. The center is still there but the swimming pool is completely filled in with dirt and grassed over.
Just down the road from our house at 14 North Reed Ave., was a small park, Fearnway Park, where we used to go once we got old enough to venture off of our own block. I remembered there being an old dry fountain we used to play in riding our bikes around like a race track. After leaving Brookley I went to see if the park was still there. Not only was it still there, it was in exactly the same condition as I remembered it from my childhood, including the dry fountain. Also in Fearnway was a drainage ditch we used to play around. Drainage ditch sounds so much less magical than it seemed back as children. It’s got moss-covered concrete walls just far enough apart to make it a bit of a challenge for 9-year old to jump across and in general it’s done as a nice looking centerpiece for the park. “Ditch” definitely doesn’t do it justice.
Leaving Fearnway, I headed over by Government Street Presbyterian Church which we attended the entire time we lived in Mobile. I didn’t go inside but took some pictures of the outside of the building. After that I went over to Baytreat, the beach front house in Fairhope, AL which Gov’t Street Presb. Church owns and uses as a church retreat setting. The dock was mostly blown away but other than that, the place was exactly as I remembered is from my childhood.

Old Shell Road was the first elementary school I attended. I still remember how fond I was of Miss Kane, my first grade teacher, and of Miss Barry, my third grade teacher who really encouraged my interest in science and animals.

Uncle John, Aunt Penny, and me in front of their Christmas tree.

When we left, the magnolia tree in the front yard was probably 4 inches in diameter and it wasn't twinned. Anybody who knows anything about trees years the word "twinned" and winces. Allowing a tree to twin is really bad because it greatly weakens the tree, making it more likely to split in half in high winds.

our old house at 14 North Reed Avenue in Mobile AL. When we lived here, the porch on the right with the swing was a screened porch. this is much nicer looking. The house was grey back then, and there was a HUGE azalea in the left front yard which, back then, would have completely blocked the front porch from view in this picture.

Day 198, Monday, December 19

Last night, I had to call Uncle John and Aunt Penny for directions to their house because it’s been so long since I last visited them that I’d forgotten where they live. I’ve not seen them since my Grandpops died in fall of 1992 and it’s been since my sophomore year in college that I’ve visited Mobile. I don’t have many relatives left alive which makes it that much more important for me to try to stay in contact with those I’ve still got! It was really great to pull in last night and reunite with them.
I rolled around Mobile today revisiting old sites. I saw Old Shell Road School where I attended first though 3rd grades. The large oak tree in the playground which I remember playing around is still standing but the school has changed. When I was there it was a poor public school. As a white student, I was the extreme minority in the school. I think that was incredibly healthy and instructive for me as a child. It’s now a magnet school for the arts and is apparently in high demand. One of my interesting memories from that schoool yard is that it's the fisrt place I ever caught a snake. I was looking for blue tailed skinks in the grass along one of the back walls of the school and ended up catching a llittle Midland Brown snake instead. Needless to say, I remember my teacher not being overwhelmingly enthused when I came running in with the snake in my hand to show her!
The house where we lived, 14 North Reed Avenue, has changed a lot. It’s now tan instead of gray. The huge azalea which used to fill our front yard with a carpet of pink flowers is now gone. The magnolia tree Dad and Mom planted is now twinned (what a shame) and is about a foot and a half in diameter at the base. The alley we used to play in which was fully graveled (is that a word?) is now largely grassed over except for the utility truck tracks. Down the alley, the garage behind the house that used to belong to Mr. Diamond is still there. I can’t remember how many times we threw rocks through the upstairs window in that garage. Damn kids!
I visited briefly with Martelle Scott this afternoon. Miss Martelle is a long time family friend from Government Street Presbyterian Church. She’s just celebrated her 82nd birth day and is more energetic than most 60 year olds! She’s a real dynamo! We chatted for a while and arranged dinner plans for tomorrow night. This evening, John and Penny took me to dinner at a seafood restaurant across Mobile Bay. Grilled shrimp, flounder fillet, crab legs, corn on the cob, sweet tea, and corn grits! YUM!

Day 197, Sunday, December 18

I Left Larry and Louise’s around 10am and headed for Mobile, AL where I lived until I was about 11 years old. It’s about a 700 mile trip and was completely uneventful. No deer. No bad drivers.
When I was laying out the initial route for my trip back in May, I planned to head into New Orleans for a bit of the Cajun flavor. Katrina changed those plans in a hurry. Instead of heading through New Orleans, I bypassed it through Baton Rouge. None-the-less the devastation from Katrina was painfully obvious. Most of the devastation I saw was in South East Texas because it was after dark by the time I rode through Louisiana.

Day 196, Saturday, December 17

This morning I got to do another first for me. I took my first Harley Davidson ride. Larry has a Screamin Eagle Road Glide which he let me take for a spin for a while. I can definitely see how the Harley crowd could fall in love with that motorcycle. It was, with the exception of vibration, extremely comfortable. It’s not nearly as stable or responsive as my RT, but it would be great for doing group rides. I’d definitely want to have heated gloves if I was going to ride it for a longer period.
Went downtown again today with Larry. He and I went to three of his stores to check on stock of printed T-shirts and then went to lunch at a restaurant, Steers and Beers for enchiladas. Afterwards, Larry and I went to one of his San Antonio/Alamo memorabilia store and I helped him printing a couple dozen T-shirts.
Larry took Louise and me out to dinner tonight. We went to a small restaurant called Grey Oak (Mossy Oak?) out in the country near Larry’s home. The steak was incredibly good and Larry ordered a couple of bottles one of the tastiest bottles of red wine I’ve ever had. We had a great time chatting and chowing.

Larry, Louise, and me at dinner. Jay is under table and the other 4 dogs are aroud somewhere! The ribs were AMAZING

Then Alamo.

a little back ground info on the Alamo. Easier for me to post a picture than to write about it

Just a quick reminder who Larry is. I met him in Jasper National Park in Cananda. Most people know him as Whip, including his friends from bmwsporttouring.com

Day 196, Friday, December 16

Spent the day with Larry today. We went down town San Antonio to see some of his businesses down in the Riverwalk district and to generally walk around. He took me out for pizza lunch with his business partner. . After lunch we walked over to the Alamo (it’s across the street from one of Larry’s businesses) for a few pictures and a little history lesson. After the day spent down town, Larry and I headed back to his place where Louise had prepared a dinner of some of best ribs I’ve ever eaten in my life. Wonderful! I enjoyed the way Larry and Louise relate. He always calls her “Darlin’”. There are a lot of issues that Larry and I see eye to eye on. We talked a lot about politics and religion today. I will definitely keep in contact with him because he’s extremely entertaining to talk with.Larry made a comment to me today about my blog that completely surprised me because it’s a comment that I’ve not heard before. He said that while the blog is great, it’d be better if I tried to write down what I’ve been feeling, not just what I’ve seen and where I’ve been. Looking back at my entries, I see he’s absolutely right. I’ve been so captured by the sights, sounds, and people that I’ve hardly given myself a chance to even worry about how I was feeling. I’m going to have to look back and see if I can dig up some of the feelings I’ve had along the trip and get them recorded. Thanks Larry!

Paul and I are laughing because he stuck his hand inside the sleeve on my handle bars (they're actually there to shield my hands from the cold wind) and said "Feels warm and sticky!" (I got a note from Paul on Jan 6 pointing out that for some reason I'd mistyped his name and put Steve instead here. Who knows why. At least I got his name correct in my journal entry.)

Giancarlo and me by my RT in Ft. Stockton. Steve and Giancarlo both had heated gloves and vests which allowed them to wear many fewer layers of clothes than I had to wear. When I get re-employed, those will be two of the first things on my "must buy" list.

From left to right Paul Skinner, me, Giancarlo Zanolini. Paul and Giancarlo are from Daytona Beach and they treated me to dinner and great companioinship. Thanks guys! Picture taken in Ft. Stockton.

more of the mushroom-like growths on a stalagmite

Though it was hard to capture in this picture, the outside surface of this formation actually had a pearlescent appearance while the inside was brown. Just about impossible to capture with my camera.

Stalactites in Carlsbad Cavern

here's a wider view of the mammary mound. Look! It's even got an underwire. (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

NOT what it looks like. (Though I know what *I* would have titled it!) I can't imagine a single guy who's ever seen this hasn't grinned about it.

This formation of stalactites looked like an upside ice castle out of some sort of Disney movie. It was beautiful and HUGE. I bet the center of the formation was probably about 20 or 30 feet long.

These formations were called "lions tails". I think they occurred as water first ran down the length of the stalactite, but then instead of dripping off, it evaporated, creating the puffy looking end of the formation

I think the caption for this formation mentioned something about "fairy land"

toad stools?

Though it doesn't look like it in this 20 sec exposure picture, there was so little light inside the cavern that it was hard to see. The sides of the formation on the right look like rows of mushrooms.

this field of stalactites looked like the roof of some sort of massive torture camber.

The long exposures inside the cavern really broughth out colors that the human eye couldn't detect.

Carlsbad Cavern rock formation

I finally figured out how to use the camera most effectively and got started with some cool pictures

stalagmite in a pool of water. hadn't figured out yet how to get my camera to take the super long exposure shots, so this one was using my flash.

Looking back up at the mouth of the cave from inside. It' s HUGE in here!

The natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns

Looking out over the plains, in NM. I know there are a LOT of people who love this big sky country, but, while I can definitely see its beauty, it's not for me.

Day 195, Thursday, December 15

Last night it was just too bitterly cold for me to try to set up my tent. I’d intended to camp at the Carlsbad KOA but because it was so bitterly cold and windy (at least as cold by the Britton-meter as it was at the Grand Canyon and definitely colder than it was at Sequoia Nat’l forest) I simply couldn’t stomach trying to set up my tent. In fact, even with the heated hand grips of the motorcycle, my fingers were completely numb when I pulled into the parking lot. Instead of pitching my tent, I simply unrolled my air mattress in the laundry room of the KOA and slept inside. There’s no way my 40 deg sleeping bag and breezy tent would have kept me warm outside. I was up this morning by 5am because I was incredibly uncomfortable on the super hard surface of the floor and because noises of the building kept waking me up over and over throughout the night.
I had the severity of the cold temps reconfirmed for me again this morning. It was the first time on this entire trip that it was too cold to start my motorcycle. It took several minutes of coaxing and begging to get it started. My plans were to roll back through Roswell before heading to Carlsbad Caverns and then on South towards San Antonio. I was looking forward to going to Roswell to see some of the alien stuff and with the hope of getting an Alien head for my motorcycle dash board. I retraced my steps 60 miles North to Roswell and got there at breakfast. After breakfast I headed down town and realized quickly what a mistake I’d made in coming back to the town. Roswell is a complete waste of time. There are only a few stores/businesses down town dealing with the alien stuff and all of the memorabilia sold in those businesses is complete junk. Never again will I come back to this town. It was a complete waste of my time.
Leaving Roswell I headed down to Carlsbad Caverns. When I got there I decided I wanted to make some lunch prior to setting off into the cave. I remembered I’d purchased some apples and bananas yesterday and figured that those would both make fantastic additions to my lunch. Not so. When I dug them out of the top bag on my bike, I found that both the nanners and the apples were frozen solid. The ‘nanners had turned a nasty, slimy black color and the once red apples were now a mottled brown. I tried eating one of each but gave up. About the only thing the bananas would have been good for was banana bread and the apples now had a consistency closer to apple sauce than to a fresh apple.


Carlsbad Caverns were absolutely beautiful. I’ve only been down in caves on a couple of occasions in my life and none of the previous jaunts was even in the same ball park as this one. I went for the walk that takes visitors in through the natural entrance, around the “big room” and then back out through an elevator. Walking down into the maw of the natural opening was an amazing experience. The cave is incomprehensibly large. In fact it’s so large that it feels more like the inside of a covered stadium than a cave under ground. One of the reasons I was looking forward to seeing this cave was because it would give me the chance to play around with long exposure night photography with my camera. I don’t think I took a single picture with an exposure shorter than 10 seconds. Thank goodness I had my tripod with me. What’s fun about long exposure pictures is that while the human eye sees largely in gray scale in dark conditions, a long exposure picture brings out all sorts of colors that the human eye doesn’t see. I was pleased to see lots of blues and greens showing up in my pictures!

Prior to going down into the cave, I called Larry Kachadourian (whom I met in Banff on August 25) to talk with him about visiting him and Louise, his wife, down in San Antonio. I’d initially planned on making the drive to San Antonio in two stages, staying the first night at a really interesting state park called Balmorhea State Park. It’s got a two acre, spring fed natural pool that’s something like 25 feet deep, crystal clear, a constant 75 degrees, and full of aquatic life. I’d selected it as a stop over while I was back in San Diego, thinking that going for a dip would be a nice way to end the day. I’d not counted on temps in the 20’s! Larry suggested that I ought to consider riding straight to San Antonio in one stage instead of two because the weather tomorrow (Friday) is supposed to get nasty, rainy, windy, and VERY cold. No need to make that suggestion twice to me. I’ve ridden through enough inclement weather on this trip that I don’t feel the need to experience it if avoidable. He suggested taking 285 to I10 instead of going by Balmorhea. He also told me that I needed to be absolutely sure to fill up the gas tank at Ft. Stockton (where 285 and I10 intersect) because there’s no gas for the next 150 miles! Where am I going with this little tangent? Well, leaving the cavern I noticed two other sport-touring motorcycles had pulled up a space over from my rig in the parking lot. While I was getting ready to leave, the owners came out and I waved to them as I was heading out towards Ft. Stockton. After arriving and filling up in Ft Stockton, I decided to get some dinner and for some reason, I had Mexican food on my mind. Riding through town, a little hole in the wall place caught my eye as I was passing it, so I swung around and pulled back into the parking lot. As I was getting out of my riding suit, I noticed the same two motorcycles from Carlsbad were parked just across the lot! When I walked into the restaurant, I figured I’d look around to see if I saw them in order to say hello. They ended up inviting me to join them for dinner and we sat and talked for probably the better part of an hour. I was curious how they’d left Carlsbad after me but had still managed to get to the restaurant before me, without passing me. Turns the reason was two fold. First, the route they’d used to get over to 285 was nearly 30 miles shorter than the one I’d taken. Reason two? They’d been traveling at as much as 140mph at times! My motorcycle won’t even go that fast!
One of them, Giancarlo Zanolini, had done a ride with his son from their home in Daytona Beach, up the East coast to Canada, then across Canada and down to Los Angeles where they’d left the bikes in storage, flying home to avoid over-running their vacation time. Giancarlo had then contacted one of his friends, Paul Skinner, and the two of them flew out to LA to get the bikes and ferry them back to Florida. Cool story! We shared a great, entertaining dinner and parted company. I’m sure I’ll drop South to visit with them some time down in FL.
Leaving Ft. Stockton, I headed East on I10 to San Antonio. It was a hair-raising ride! Not because the roads were poor, they were impeccably clean and smooth, but because there were literally thousands of deer wandering up alongside the highway for the entire ride. I’ve never in my life, probably cumulatively, seen as many deer as I did on that section of I10. Having already hit a deer earlier on this trip, I wasn’t quite white knuckled on the handle bars, but I *definitely* had a knot in my stomach. I ended up pulling into Larry and Louise’s house around 2am and Larry and I stayed up and talked until about 3am. He’s an extremely interesting guy to talk with. He shares many of the same views on society, politics, and science as I do and is a self made successful entrepreneur, having started well over a dozen businesses in his career, most of which are still in operation.

I'm a sucker for cool texture shots

I thought it was fascinataing how many different patterns of ripples there were in the sand here. The different types of ripples seem to come in distinct patches.

Here you can see how the invasive plant forms a mound that stabilizes the sand even as the dunes move past it. Not apparent from this picture is the size of the roots this plant sends down. They're about 6" in diameter and are thickly massed inside the mound.

the lighting made West facing pictures the most interesting for shadow effects

very solitary hiking out here. footprints don't last long because there's so much blowing sand which fills them in and erases them from sight.

Just as with the dunes in Death Valley, the gradient of colors was fascinating and beautiful

Looking Westward across the dunes. One of the invasive Asian plants is visible sticking up on the left side of the picture