A second chance at once in a lifetime? How often does that happen? What will befall our intrepid team now 12 months older, and one year wiser?!
The dates, cast. The team, decided. Yet to be determined? The exact destinations, routes, and how your wayward travelers will fare when tested by the elements and each other... Yet make no mistake - preparations are underway for the 2019 Prefrontal Tour.
Dust off those keyboards to follow along, dear readers, then polish up your best maps and meteorological auguries. It's gonna be a ride, and we're gonna need you there.
Day -25 of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour dawned,... well, it hasn't yet. At least I don't think so... It's hard to tell with all the black clouds and torrential rain.
As with all adages, there's a remarkable kernel of truth to "feast or famine".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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...
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.
"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.
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 shot out of Salida at 6:50 AM, to 46 degrees, saluting the sun a bit as it rose low over the eastern hills - something it would do dozens of times as the canyon walls rose and fell around us. It was a beautiful way to say goodbye to the mountains, with the Arkansas River's pools and rifflings below.
We left Nebraska to the roar of classic cars at 7:15 AM, a temperature of 57 degrees that seemed colder than it was, and a low sun rising over a flat horizon with no mountains to give us an intermittent reprieve.