“It was a bright cold day in April…”
Points if you recognize that plagiarism.
Various complications delayed my intended departure, but it had dipped to near freezing Thursday night so I was content to let it warm up. After loading my duffel in the left saddlebag I gave Laurel a long hug and a kiss, and attempted farewells to the kittens, but Jacques and Cato were more interested in chasing each other up and down the hall than cuddling with me.
I’ll bet they’re regretting it now.
On this trip I will carry the memories of the past few months bonding with these two young ruffians, the first cats I’ve known who I’m pretty sure actually like me.
Points if you recognize that plagiarism.
Various complications delayed my intended departure, but it had dipped to near freezing Thursday night so I was content to let it warm up. After loading my duffel in the left saddlebag I gave Laurel a long hug and a kiss, and attempted farewells to the kittens, but Jacques and Cato were more interested in chasing each other up and down the hall than cuddling with me.
I’ll bet they’re regretting it now.
On this trip I will carry the memories of the past few months bonding with these two young ruffians, the first cats I’ve known who I’m pretty sure actually like me.
I’ve always been a dog person, and have never before lived with a cat more than briefly. Unlike any dog I’ve had, all of whom fell in what can only be described as “love” with me after a few hours if not minutes, for weeks Jacques and Cato gave me the impression they considered me little more than a very convenient asset. But I now believe they do harbor something akin to genuine affection.
The other salient difference between cats and dogs I’ve observed is dogs deeply wish to be human; in particular they really wish they could drive the car, which is ideally a convertible.
Cats have no interest whatsoever in being human.
One of the morning’s complications was to build a new playlist. In honor of the successful Crew-2 launch I was wearing my SpaceX T-shirt and after starting Nada 3 kicked off Rush’s Countdown, Neil Peart’s recollection of his experience witnessing the first launch of the space shuttle Columbia.
The other salient difference between cats and dogs I’ve observed is dogs deeply wish to be human; in particular they really wish they could drive the car, which is ideally a convertible.
Cats have no interest whatsoever in being human.
One of the morning’s complications was to build a new playlist. In honor of the successful Crew-2 launch I was wearing my SpaceX T-shirt and after starting Nada 3 kicked off Rush’s Countdown, Neil Peart’s recollection of his experience witnessing the first launch of the space shuttle Columbia.
Riding west on Indianwood Road, Go! from Public Service Broadcasting’s The Race For Space came on, another track featuring NASA capcom and mission control recordings as an integral element of the song.
Most the rest of the ride to Cincinnati wasn’t particularly notable. I’d plotted a ridiculously complex route consisting as much as possible of what passes for twisty backroads in Michigan and northern Ohio. I occasionally found myself with a set of curves to myself but more often was just part of a chain of traffic; once into Ohio the curves essentially disappeared. I missed a turn at one point but it didn’t really matter; all I needed to do was zig zag south and west until I hit US-127, which happened north of Paulding where I stopped for lunch at Fiesta Habaneros. At three in the afternoon I was the only diner.
The weather remained cool, which is always fine with me, eventually reaching the low 60s. There was usually a high level overcast. No rain. This was all consistent with the forecast I’d been watching keenly for the past 10 days.
In what has become a perhaps excessively complicated set of Excel workbooks I use for trip planning, the most recent addition is a set of data to which I’ve applied conditional formatting (value-sensitive background color). I pegged various metro areas on or near my planned route and the dates during which I expected to pass through or near them, and started a routine of punching in the forecast data every morning.
In what has become a perhaps excessively complicated set of Excel workbooks I use for trip planning, the most recent addition is a set of data to which I’ve applied conditional formatting (value-sensitive background color). I pegged various metro areas on or near my planned route and the dates during which I expected to pass through or near them, and started a routine of punching in the forecast data every morning.
A few days ago the chance of rain in the region around Louisville on Saturday the 24th was 40%. I considered this almost unacceptably high but then it jumped to 80% and crept up from there. This caused me to evaluate an alternate schedule that would launch (just like Crew-2) a day later than the original target.
This was a clearly superior option, as the one day in which rain appeared inevitable would be spent on my only planned layover day, and one in which I wouldn’t be camping. It would in fact be quite excellent to spend a rainy day playing go with Paul Chuey in his Cincinnati loft. The stormier outside, the better.
After that, three days of winding through the twistiest route I could engineer through western Kentucky, southern Missouri, and northern Arkansas had a rather higher chance of precipitation than I prefer, especially considering my plan to tent camp those nights. But it would probably be possible to ride around or wait out rain should it actually materialize during the day.
The forecast for the passage from Arkansas along I-40 through Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle was about as good as it gets.
As for my first day on the road...riding south on US-127, at Camden my noise-cancellation unit’s charge began to fail. This was disappointing as I’d checked it the night before and decided it was good to go. With a full charge it should have been good for an entire day’s riding but I guess it must have been at just over the minimum threshold for a display of double green lights.
The experience of charge failure is annoying. With what seems like a severe snap! the entire audio track and noise cancellation cut out. After a few seconds, another snap! and both outputs resume. Initially this syndrome is occasional and only when the unit is working hardest, which is while obliged to deal with wake turbulence from other vehicles. But it only gets worse and unfortunately I don’t have a good way to simply turn it off while riding.
At the next available graveyard I pulled in and removed the earbuds. Just as well, as after several hours of nearly continuous wear their comfort level had declined to “unendurable”. That’s by my notoriously masochistic standards; most people would probably consider them intolerable as soon they got stuffed into a helmet.
After that, three days of winding through the twistiest route I could engineer through western Kentucky, southern Missouri, and northern Arkansas had a rather higher chance of precipitation than I prefer, especially considering my plan to tent camp those nights. But it would probably be possible to ride around or wait out rain should it actually materialize during the day.
The forecast for the passage from Arkansas along I-40 through Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle was about as good as it gets.
As for my first day on the road...riding south on US-127, at Camden my noise-cancellation unit’s charge began to fail. This was disappointing as I’d checked it the night before and decided it was good to go. With a full charge it should have been good for an entire day’s riding but I guess it must have been at just over the minimum threshold for a display of double green lights.
The experience of charge failure is annoying. With what seems like a severe snap! the entire audio track and noise cancellation cut out. After a few seconds, another snap! and both outputs resume. Initially this syndrome is occasional and only when the unit is working hardest, which is while obliged to deal with wake turbulence from other vehicles. But it only gets worse and unfortunately I don’t have a good way to simply turn it off while riding.
At the next available graveyard I pulled in and removed the earbuds. Just as well, as after several hours of nearly continuous wear their comfort level had declined to “unendurable”. That’s by my notoriously masochistic standards; most people would probably consider them intolerable as soon they got stuffed into a helmet.
I deployed my Thermos and had a few swigs of coffee, and enjoyed the tranquility of the cemetery. Cleaned my faceshield. Refolded the paper map. Checked Google maps and decided, given the lateness of the hour, to continue straight on via US-127 rather than attempt my original plan to detour onto a string of freeways purely to avoid a grind through the congested zone northwest of Paul’s place, which is less than a quarter mile off of 127.
As I left the cemetery the roads started getting more interesting; finally some curves and hills and even the occasional vista. Highly interesting was the train derailment, well over half a dozen bulk material cars on their sides on both sides of a highway crossing.
Unfortunately, traffic only got generally worse and finally the ride became the congested gauntlet I’d have avoided entirely had I gotten an earlier start. I was glad I’d installed a new LED light bar to supplement Nada 3’s (as usual for BMW) criminally inadequate OEM taillight/brakelight. Remarkably, I accumulated no demerits during this phase; I was surprised by nobody, though there was a squeaker in which a driver stopped abruptly to parallel park and I was concerned he might swing his front end into my path on purpose in retribution for me having followed him for some distance with my high beam on. Ready for an evasive maneuver should it be necessary, I accelerated past him and into a traffic-free zone that lasted for some time.
The entire ride was low on demerits. I stalled a couple times because Nada 3's neutral light is utterly unreliable, and there were a few navigation mistakes worth a point each.
And the risky choice of routes might have been worth it; the final leg through the “Northside” neighborhood revealed a somewhat Bohemian outward appearance with a number of potentially interesting eateries and watering holes, and only staggering distance from Paul’s loft.
Paul had made pizzas from scratch and there was a slice left of the first one that he and Kathy had shared before she left for Columbus; I was told I’d see her on Saturday night when she returned.
Paul and Kathy’s flat is in the American Can Lofts, previously a factory that made, you guessed it, cans.
As I left the cemetery the roads started getting more interesting; finally some curves and hills and even the occasional vista. Highly interesting was the train derailment, well over half a dozen bulk material cars on their sides on both sides of a highway crossing.
Unfortunately, traffic only got generally worse and finally the ride became the congested gauntlet I’d have avoided entirely had I gotten an earlier start. I was glad I’d installed a new LED light bar to supplement Nada 3’s (as usual for BMW) criminally inadequate OEM taillight/brakelight. Remarkably, I accumulated no demerits during this phase; I was surprised by nobody, though there was a squeaker in which a driver stopped abruptly to parallel park and I was concerned he might swing his front end into my path on purpose in retribution for me having followed him for some distance with my high beam on. Ready for an evasive maneuver should it be necessary, I accelerated past him and into a traffic-free zone that lasted for some time.
The entire ride was low on demerits. I stalled a couple times because Nada 3's neutral light is utterly unreliable, and there were a few navigation mistakes worth a point each.
And the risky choice of routes might have been worth it; the final leg through the “Northside” neighborhood revealed a somewhat Bohemian outward appearance with a number of potentially interesting eateries and watering holes, and only staggering distance from Paul’s loft.
Paul had made pizzas from scratch and there was a slice left of the first one that he and Kathy had shared before she left for Columbus; I was told I’d see her on Saturday night when she returned.
Paul and Kathy’s flat is in the American Can Lofts, previously a factory that made, you guessed it, cans.
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