A once-in-a-lifetime trip across America, to clear out 23 years of chaff from the corporate working world, and seemingly always under the threat of approaching winter weather.
It was 37 degrees and dark on Day 1 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour, with reports of snowflakes falling somewhere in the Adirondacks. We put off the launch until after dawn, so as not to be driving at deer-thirty in the morning, and in the hope that it would warm up a bit... Gassing up at Fuller's Store in Edinburgh, we headed south under broken clouds set ablaze by an Autumn sunrise, through Amsterdam and the farm fields of Schoharie county, hooking up with the concrete slab of I-88 to make some time through Oneonta and beyond.
We were two miles down the single-lane dirt road when I realized that dogs and cows are not alike. Heading across Ohio on Day 2 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour had begun with copious amounts of drizzle that had turned intermittently to torrential amounts of rain during the journey. It was Jim's turn to navigate, and his Harley-Davidson navigational unit thought it would be great fun to send us down several dirt roads in central Ohio.
5:30 AM came early, the inevitable result of two days of riding, but it wasn't as bad as either of us feared, and time and ride wait for no man. The breakfast was better than the dinner the night before, but neither of them held a candle to the sunrise over the Ohio River. We wiped the worst of the dew off the steeds and powered west to beat the brewing storm front rising out of Texas three days hence. It was cold - the coldest we've felt yet, and we stopped to cinch the straps and collars before turning south.
Day 4 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour was a melange for the senses. Rising before dawn out of habit, we were anxious for good news about the bike. Any news would have been better than waiting for the shop to open at 9 AM. I made the compulsory check with the service department to make sure I'd actually sweet-talked my way to the front of the line, and headed to the respective parts departments of the Honda, Indian and Harley Davidson dealers in search of spare fuses, having exhausted my supply the day before. Lather, rinse, repeat,...
How to recount Day 5 of the Prefrontal Tour, dear reader, other than to relate the day's events to an experience you're all familiar with. You arrive at the airport, excited to be traveling on vacation. Your flight is delayed slightly, and then delayed again. After an indeterminate number of delays, your flight is finally cancelled, and you're left to your own devices on how to manage your possessions, lodging, dining, and hopefully an eventual arrival at your ultimate destination.
I was surprised to see the light peeking around the curtain, having passed the age a decade ago when a biochemical change makes you pop awake at 5 AM. Every day. Then a whiff of chlorine reminded me it was just the light from the swimming pool that our room overlooked, and it was still 5 AM, dark, and a very cold 32 degrees. But Day 6 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour was a day to make up for lost time, and there was no more to lose. A Canadian invasion was underway to the north, a mass of frigid air 5 states wide with temps well below freezing.
No collection would be complete without reflection and dedication. As day 7 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour comes to a close, I feel it's long overdue to dedicate this story to someone whose support and concern has been key to its success. My long-suffering wife has been monitoring our progress with a concern and caring that exceeds my own, and I dedicate this story to her. The morning started out in Joplin, Missouri with a fog so thick it would have done DownEast Maine with a coming tide proud.
As the 2018 Prefrontal Tour left Amarillo before sunrise, I learned that cows can smell in two completely different ways, or at least I hope for their sake they can... If you aggregate enough of them in one place, then cows can smell very *badly*. And if I'm right about the big guy upstairs, he would have gifted any animal that poops where it eats the ability to smell very *poorly*. So there you have it.
This Tour note has something special for the reader in the form of several quizzes, and an opportunity to get involved in the Tour yourself! Day 9's agenda for the 2018 Prefrontal Tour was an epic sprint across 627 miles of desert, starting in Holbrook, AZ and ending in Bakersfield, CA, the hometown of Buck Owens. The first thing of note on the road was a series of signs for the Jack Rabbit Ranch, and I wondered if they grow them for food or fur. No, we didn't stop... We continued west through towns with interesting names like "Deaf Smith", and "Two Guns".
Today was supposed to be a down day for the 2018 Prefrontal Tour, in that we would make no forward progress. And while that's true in the cartographic sense, we still managed to move the needle more than any other day of the Tour so far. We spent the morning taking care of incidental issues about town, checking over the bikes, buying souvenirs, and picking up a few clothing items that were more appropriate for this 80-plus degree weather.
Day 11 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour was to finish off the To-Do list and get headed back east. We packed and repacked the bikes, but in the end a couple things had to go - my plastic containers and black sneakers were ready for the dustbin anyway, and I had to toss them out for lack of space. Jim got a pretty cool photo of my bike before dawn, backlit by the hotel's accent lights, but truth be told the desert has put a shameful layer of grit on the old girl. We headed west out of Bakersfield, through that now familiar mixture of grapevines, fruit trees, and oil pumps.
I could throw a lot of adjectives at Day 12 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour, but none of them would do justice to the ride. Looking out the window at dawn I saw an enormous cat behind the hotel. Deer grey with a long black-tipped tail, it jumped at least six feet straight up into a tree. I kept looking for things around it to get a sense of scale - it looked to be 30 inches tall at the head, and over 4 feet long, which either makes it an enormous tabby or a tiny mountain lion.
Did you hear the story about the two peanuts that went for a walk in the park after dark? In a nutshell, one was a salted. If any word describes Day 13 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour, it's "salted". We got on the road a bit later than usual, but not by much. It was enough time, however, for the sun to be showing over the horizon, and it makes for a brutal start to the day to be riding eastward into the rising sun. It was cold enough to see our breath for the first time on the Tour, too.
There really is a rhythm of the road, or should I say a common refrain with accent notes. Rise, pack, eat, ride. Frequent stops for hydration and fuel. Find lodging, eat, unpack, plan tomorrow's route, sleep. It's mostly the same but the accent notes are the weather and the clothing and gear choices you make in response. Day 14 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour was the coldest we've seen yet, and it took us a couple hours to make the right choices.
Today's episode is brought to you by the word "prairie", and also by the word "tan". Say them with me now. Prairie... Tan... Now, close your eyes and say them for 7 straight hours. And just like that, it's like you were *there* on Day 15 of the 2018 Prefrontal Tour! We started the day late due to some expected repairs, which gave time for the sun to rise above the horizon, then Wyoming gave way to Nebraska within the first hour and a stacatto arrangement of, well, browns.
I learned early on to avoid upside-down boats on the highway, but thankfully there aren't many on this stretch of the Tour. That aversion might be obvious to some, but for me it was a process of learning and comparison. For you see, dear reader, each vehicle creates turbulence in its wake, depending on its size, speed, and shape, also known as "frontal area", "velocity", and "aerodynamics". That turbulence can create an alternating pattern of gusts called "buffeting" that batters a rider's head from left and right.
It wasn't good. To be kind, it was swollen and the purple of a deep and sullen bruise. To be more accurate, it was *grossly* swollen, and contained the varied shades of blue and purple that shouldn't occur in nature. I wasn't going to touch it, and it ought to be a felony in all fifty states to call that thing a blueberry. There was nothing I could put next to it to provide a sense of scale, but my family will attest that blueberries should be wild, small and sweet - not morbidly obese, mushy and bland like that failure of nuclear medicine that stared back at me from my breakfast bowl.
By now you're not surprised that we rose before dawn, but 2 AM was a bit much. After a few hours of sleep I was awake and already anticipating the ride, and if the adjacent rustling was any indication I could tell that Jim was too. We did a decent job of pretending to sleep until 5-something, which is still stupid o'clock in the morning, and then rose to perform the routine. We've got it down pat now, ironically, on the last day of the tour. It was 49 degrees and had already rained hard, but thankfully wasn't actively raining at the moment.
Now that the 2018 Prefrontal Tour is over (and it's been raining like hell all day) it's time for the "closure episode", e.g. reflections and ruminations from the road. We saw a lot on the round-trip, and it was interesting to compare one state to another during our journey. Some interesting statistics - days away: 18... miles traveled: 7,637... average miles per travel day: 408... most miles in a single day: 610... altitude traversed: 279,333 feet... top speed: 101 mph (it was a long desert highway honey, I swear)... typical average speed: 70 mph...