Decision Made - Staying South of the Border

Sometimes decisions are easy when they're essentially made for you because your options are severely limited.  I as much as I loathe being told where I can and cannot go, I'm even more averse to unnecessary risks.  One such decision has been the topic of a few recent blog entries.

I have been debating attempting to cross the border into Canada and heading up the ALCAN for a ten-year reunion with Alaska.  Prime Minister Trudeau is a bigger idiot than Joe Biden and the restrictions he's imposed are not only crushing Canadians' vacations, they're crushing the Canadian economy as well.  Despite the restrictions, I feel confident I have verifiable documentation for justifiable means to cross in order to "provide an essential service in Alaska".  All I would need is a 72-hour negative China virus test result.  Returning home would be allowed under the provision that I am returning through Canada from essential work, back to my home state.  Again, another virus test would be needed.  Even with my ducks in as much of a row as ducks might get, the final decision is completely subjective and would be up to the Border Agent in duty when I arrive there.  If I get the wrong guy having a bad day, I'm I'm heading south.  I decided that was more risk than I want to take.

I will stay in America where things are increasingly opening up as citizens stand up and demand to reclaim their freedoms.  As such, I've selected some interesting routes that will take me WAY off the beaten path and force me to ride slower, fewer hours per day, and to actually breathe.  While on the Alaskapade in 2011, I rode crazy 900-mile long segments for days on end. I think I'll slow my roll a bit on this trip.  My motivations are very different a decade later.

North by Northwest

I plan to meander my way through New Mexico and  the most iconic northbound routes in Colorado, making my to Red Lodge Montana - the start of the Beartooth Highway.  I'll camp wherever between home and Montana and get there when I get there.

From Red Lodge, I'll ride the Beartooth Highway westward and make my way up to Whidey Island, to which I last rode in 2010 with my mom.  I'll take the Keystone Ferry to Port Townsend/Coupeville and make my east to La Push, WA.  From La Push, I'll start hugging the pacific coastline and ride 101south into Oregon.  I'll have a short tourist stop/photo op in Bend, OR before heading back to the coast and riding south into California.  Once in California, I'll make my way to PC101 and ride the iconic Pacific Coast Highway down to San Luis Obispo.  I'm considering a run all the way south to San Diego, just to say I did it, but will decide based on the time I have left in my schedule.

From either San Diego or San Luis Obispo, I will make my way to Yosemite National Park and then up to Lake Tahoe to a attend a gathering riders that we've had for the last ten years.  While in Tahoe,  I will park the trailer and actually spend five nights in a hotel, which will be a welcome change after two weeks in a tent.  I plan to head back home the following Friday, with a stop somewhere along the way.  It would be nice to be home for Independence Day.

That's it folks.  It ain't Alaska, but I'm going to make the best of it and capture some drone and surface level footage and lots of photos.

Trailer Trash

I wrote previously about building a trailer to pull behind Hester for motorcycle camping.  I picked up a shell of a trailer built by a friend of a friend.  It had good bones and I set out to realize my vision of the perfect motorcycle travel rig.  The eight-inch wheels and bias ply tires were replaced with twelve-inch mags and radials.  Larger wheels spin slower and less and therefore inflict less wear and tear on wheel bearings. Of course, this meant I had to install larger fenders to accommodate the larger wheels. I added a pair of twenty-pound hydraulic strut lifts to hold the clamshell open while I’m loading, unloading, or just digging around in there.  I added surface level D rings in the base of the clamshell, to which I can attach bungee cords that serve to secure cargo while I'm on the move.  I extended the tongue eighteen inches, which moves the clamshell back more from the motorcycle to provide a more stable towing experience and to make load distribution more forgiving.  Load distribution is paramount when pulling a trailer, especially with a motorcycle. The elongated tongue bar gave me room to mount an ice chest holder in front of the clamshell.  Finally, I added a removable 100-watt solar panel to the roof.  This panel charges a small integrated inverter/generator that stores inside the clamshell.  The panel and generator combined weigh less than 25 pounds!  With this rig, I can charge the generator while I ride all day and have multiple 110VAC power outlets and high-speed USB ports for charging my electronics at night.  I had already outfitted Hester with a trailer hitch and wiring for the LED trailer lighting.  Although I haven’t weighed the finished product yet, the entire fully packed and properly balanced rig can be led around and dropped on the trailer hitch ball with just one hand.  It’s everything I envisioned when I set out to create a capable motorcycle trailer rig.

As with any motorcycle maintenance, the trailer needed a shakedown run to prove its road worthiness.  There’s a loop near my home that I like to ride after I work on Hester that offers a a good mix of roughly forty-five miles of curves, pavement, and gravel roads.  I decided to forego this loop and just winged it on my first trailer trip out; riding three hundred miles to the Arkansas National Forest for a weekend camping trip.  While I knew the trailer design and ergonomics were solid, I was still a bit apprehensive about the first trip and I kept my speed down to 60mph for the first thirty or so miles.  The trailer pulled like a dream.  Honestly, it’s easy to forget it’s back there, which would be a nightmare in the wrong circumstances.  It’s most important to account for the additional space needed at gas stations, tight 90-degree corners, and while backing into parking spaces.  Within an hour on the road, I was confidently cruising at 80mph and the trip to Hot Springs was uneventful.  I did notice a hit on gas mileage to the tune of about ten percent, which is only slightly more than riding with an adult passenger.  That's a cost and time factor I will have to consider as I plan trips.

While on the road, I got a lot of odd stares from people not only unaccustomed to seeing a motorcycle pulling a trailer, but a trailer with a solar panel on its roof.  It made for interesting conversations at gas stops, with most people wondering where the equipment the panel charged was and how I interconnected everything.  I think I’ll make a YouTube video.

I learned an interesting aspect of trailering that I had not previously considered.  If I spot an object in my path riding on two wheels, I can usually dodge it.  If I’m in a car, I can usually straddle it.  This is not the case when pulling a trailer with a motorcycle. If there’s an object on the road and insufficient time or distance away to change lanes, something is going to hit it.  Trike riders know this but I’ve never ridden a trike, so it was an epiphany for me.  I’ll do some research on the best tactics, but I suspect letting one of the radial tires take the impact is more practical than the motorcycle.  For one, motorcycle tires are inline, so if one hits it the other follows and they could both be damaged.  The trailer wheels are separated by an axle and the radial tires are more forgiving (and far less expensive) than motorcycle tires.  Trailer wheels are also much easier to change than motorcycle wheels and I carry a spare and lug wrench in the trailer.

All in all, Hester’s first outing with her tag along was an uneventful success.  All the trailer needs is a name.  I decided to call her Pearl as that was the name of Hester Prynne’s illegitimate daughter in The Scarlett Letter.  It seemed only fitting.

 

Alternate Itinerary

Well, shit.

The more I thought about it, the more interested I was in a potential Arctic adventure route change.  As cool as it might be, the reality is the choice might not be mine to make.  Borders around the world (except for the US southern border) are still in a state of flux, thanks again to China and the global virus they unleashed.  The Canadian border is no exception, but there are exceptions to the restrictions that I thought would determine my ultimate route.

Until recently, US citizens could enter Canada in vehicles with the expressed purpose of traveling straight to Alaska with no "tourist" stops along the way.  Drivers' vehicles are tagged at the Canadian border entry and they are given a specific amount of days to exit Canada at an Alaskan border.  Drivers not exiting within the time limit are fined and/or detained.  This boded well for me because I can get through Canada in a few days; even at a leisurely pace of 800 miles per day.  Since I'm tugging a trailer and can just pull over and camp, I'll come in contact with even fewer people. I hoped Canadian border officials would appreciate this, but I honestly don't expect their leadership to act any more rationally than ours.

If the previous travel restrictions were still being enforced when I planned to leave in June, then I would have gone with my original plan and ride through Fairbanks up to Prudhoe Bay.  If time allowed, I might've ridden south to Anchorage on my way out since I've never ridden there.  If the Canadian border restrictions had been relaxed, then I planned to make a turn to the north outside Dawson City and ride new ground (for me) to the Arctic Ocean north of the Dempster Highway.  I haven't done the research to speculate the amount of time it will take to get to Tuktoyaktuk, but I've read that the roads are mostly unpaved and that there are multiple river crossings where I'll be at the mercy of ferry schedules. I also must remember that this trip will be capped off by riding to Shark Week XI and as such, I have to plan my dates to the greatest extent possible around arriving in Lake Tahoe by June 28th.

People who know me know that I end to be spontaneous in life...except with my road trips.  There are so many things that could go wrong that I have to plan every detail with backup alternatives because when it comes to achieving personal accomplishments, I don't like leaving things to chance.  That said, there are many uncertainties that I'll just have to face when they happen. That uncertainty is all part of the adventure and I am in real need of adventure!

Canada has introduced a new economy-crushing initiative that forces travelers to pay a $2,000 fee for the privilege of staying in a pre-selected quarantine hotel for three nights and that must be followed up for an additional eleven days of local quarantine.  Makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

I won't let anyone, much less Canada stop me from making an epic trip.  I rode to Shark Week X in Gettysburg in July during the height of the pandemic nonsense and in one of the most locked-down states in the country.  Our event had a great crowd, went off without a hitch, and those who bailed on it out of fear regretted it from the first days when all the arrival photos started being posted.  We played it safe and acted responsibly.  Not one of the attendees became ill after returning home.

If Trudeau doesn't pull his head out of his ass, my current plan is to make my way through Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho to Washington.  Then, I'll follow highway 101 south, hugging the coastline through Washington, Oregon, and into California; camping all the way up and down.  Once in Cali, I'll catch super scenic PC1 and ride it at least as far south as San Luis Obispo.  If time permits, I might ride all the way to San Diego before turning northeast and heading towards Yosemite and on to Lake Tahoe for Shark Week XI.

I mapped out a few potential scenic routes that ought to offer some camping spots along the way.  I'm sure these will change over the next six weeks.  Stay tuned!

Alaskapade 2021 - A Route Change?

I've been planning my return to the Arctic ever since my 2020 Everest trip was scuttled by the China virus.  At 58 years old, I still have a few adventures in me and it's been ten years, so why not return?  On my last Alaska trip in 2011, I rode deep into the Arctic Circle, turning around at Coldfoot Camp due to weather on the north slope.  Although riding to the Arctic Circle sign was my goal, I entertained the idea of riding to Dead Horse and seeing the Arctic Ocean.

 

I have pics of my riding boots in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.  Snapping a pic of them in the Arctic Ocean would be cool.  The problem is, in Alaska, vehicles are prohibited to drive past Deadhorse in Prudhoe Bay.  If I want to see the water, I'll have to hop on a bus with the other tourists.  But, there is another option.

One of the most scenic roads in Canada is the Dempster (Inuvik-to-Tuktoyaktuk) Highway.  This "road" is primarily gravel crap and there are several ferry crossings, but it will take me all the way to the Arctic shore.  I think it's time to rethink my trip.

Will it still be called the Alaskapade?

 

 

As I type this, the more I think about it, the more interested I get in the potential Arctic adventure route change.  As cool as it might be, the reality is the choice might not be mine to make.  Borders around the world are in a state of flux, thanks again to China and the global virus they unleashed.  The Canadian border is no exception, but there are exceptions to the restrictions that will determine my ultimate route.

Currently, US citizens can enter Canada in vehicles with the expressed purpose of traveling straight to Alaska with no "tourist" stops along the way.  Drivers' vehicles are tagged at the Canadian border entry and they are given a specific amount of days to exit Canada at an Alaskan border.  Drivers not exiting within the time limit are fined and/or detained.  This bodes well for me because I can get through Canada in a few days; even at a leisurely pace of 800 miles per day.  Since I'm tugging a trailer and can just pull over and camp, I'll come in contact with even fewer people. I'm hoping the Canadian border officials will appreciate this.  If the current travel restriction is still being enforced when I plan to leave in June, then I will go with my original plan and ride through Fairbanks up to Prudhoe Bay.  If time allows, I might ride south to Anchorage on my way out since I've never ridden there.

If the Canadian border restrictions are relaxed, then I think I'll make the turn to the north outside Dawson City and ride new ground (for me).  I haven't done the research to speculate the amount of time it will take to get to Tuktoyaktuk, but I've read that the roads are mostly unpaved and that there are multiple river crossings where I'll be at the mercy of ferry schedules. I also must remember that this trip will be capped off by riding to Shark Week XI and as such, I have to plan my dates to the greatest extent possible around arriving in Lake Tahoe by June 28th.  People who know me know that I tend to be spontaneous in life...except with my road trips.  There are so many things that could go wrong that I have to plan every detail with backup alternatives because when it comes to achieving personal accomplishments, I don't like leaving things to chance.  That said, there are many uncertainties that I'll just have to face when they happen. That uncertainty is all part of the adventure and I am in real need of adventure!

 Stay tuned!

This is the route I'm considering.

 

From Cool to Comfort - The Geezer Glide Path

2006 H-D Wide Glide

All Harleys are cool, although some are arguably more cool than others and there always those that stand out.  My first Harley was a 2006 Wide Glide.  I enjoyed customizing it and rolling into my favorite biker dive, Stroker's Ice House where it always turned heads.  After a few years, riding to Stroker's and around town had grown old and I started venturing out.  Before I knew it, I was doing 1,000 mile weekends, which in those days was impressive (at least to me) on a non-touring bike.

By 2010, I had the long ride bug and knew it was time to move to a more accommodating platform, both in terms of comfort and storage.  That's when I traded cool for comfort.  I had seen Road Glides, but never really paid attention to them.  I never paid attention to any touring bikes because they were boring to me.  In my eyes, they were one step from a trike and a trike was one step from a Gold Wing and a Gold Wing was one step from a wheel chair.  When I decided to "move up", I focused on the Road Glide because it was different.  Its pointed nose and stationary fairing stood out in a crowd and people called it "fugly". In September, I made a late night deal with a salesman in his end-of-quarter sales stretch and left my Wide Glide behind.  And just like that, I was officially a Geezer Glider.

Hester Has Been There and Back

That was ten years ago and I haven't looked back. I've ridden "Hester" through 49 states to amazing points of interest and across all the iconic and scenic routes.  She was totaled in 2016, only to be reborn with fresh paint and an over-the-top audio system and in 2019, she got a new 110" motor.  At eleven years old, she's as fresh as she was the day I brought her home. And...in the Road Glide world, she's actually cool.

That's not to say I haven't added my share up updates.  I'm not much of a chrome guy and I haven't accessorized with every possible bolt-on part.  But, I do appreciate comfort.  Over the years, I've added Ohlins suspension, a super comfy custom seat packed with gel padding and hospital-grade memory foam, and a windscreen that works so well I can smell my farts at 70mph.  I suppose passengers might not appreciate that last part as much as I do.  I also went overboard with audio.  I usually listen to audiobooks through my helmet speakers, but let's just say that when I crank it up and listen to Led Zeppelin, everyone around me listens to Led Zeppelin.

On my long rides, I usually cash in hotel points to sleep in a comfy room and enjoy a soft mattress,  Wi-Fi and a free breakfast.  But this is not always the case.  I really like camping and I'm pretty adept at it.  In 2011, I purchased camping gear in preparation for my first ride to Alaska and took a few short distance practice trips to sort out suspension load adjustments, added weight handling, and optimal packing.  There wasn't much room, so I learned to pack very efficiently.  The gear I purchased was well-suited for motorcycle camping as it was both lightweight and compactable.  The trip to the REI store on the day of their annual "garage sale" was quite an interesting event unto itself.  You can read about it here.  But I digress.

I've used the gear I purchased in 2010 and 2011 many times and have gotten more than my money's worth out of it.  I most recently moto-camped in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which was a mere 600-mile lunch ride from my home to the west Texas/New Mexico border.  The tent, while generally serviceable, had a few holes in the nylon here and there, torn zippers, and the flexible fiberglass rods that form the structure had started to split due to age.  The sleeping bag was a super-compact Ranger bag rated to -5°F.  While that's nice, it's also a mummy bag, meaning it's tapered from shoulder width at the top to barely wider than the width of my two feet at the bottom.  I remember being very comfy in this bag over the years, but this time I felt like I was sleeping in a combined coffin and straight jacket.  Temple Grandin would love it.  The bag's zipper had been torn and I was forced to sleep with it unzipped.  While that gave me room to wiggle, it did little to keep in my body heat in the cool night mountain air.  To top it all off, the single-width air mattress I purchased in 2010 no longer held air.  It's time for new gear.

Now that I'm ten years older (if not wiser), I'm taking a different approach to camping gear.  The technology has matured over the last decade and I plan to take advantage of it.  As entertained as I was by the crowd in December of 2010, I will not be attending the REI garage sale.  I may have grown no wiser over the last tenth of a century, but it's a given that the eco-Nazi douche-nozzle crowd that frequents that place will have grown exponentially worse.  I'll buy elsewhere.

Chateau Shrug 2021

My new camping gear approach will prioritize comfort and performance over compact and lightweight.  For starters, I want a tent in which I can actually stand up.  My old tent was described as being able to comfortably accommodate three men.  My experience in that tent taught me that those three men would have to be extremely "close"...and possibly dwarfs.  While I was able to sit upright in it and it did hold the items I wanted removed from the bike overnight, it was oppressively small and confining.  For Christmas this year, my son bought me a new Coleman tent that is taller and also has a larger floor space.  Check one item off the list!

I also want a full-size sleeping bag.  In fact, I want one of those double bags for two people that is essentially two like bags zipped together.  While I foresee no chance of a second person ever occupying the extra space, I want to to be able to spread out in my sleeping bag.  This is especially important after riding for ten to twelve hours day-after-day.  Furthermore, I tend to flop around in bed and when I'm wrapped like a mummy, I wake up realizing I'm confined and then I fight to get comfortable and go back to sleep. Even if I repaired the zipper, he mummy bag simply will not work anymore.

Finally, I'll have a real air mattress with a battery-powered inflation pump.  Even as small as that old mattress was, blowing it up the old fashioned way made me dizzy back then.  I'd probably slip into a coma if I tried today.  I picked up a double bed-sized model and used it on my Guadalupe trip.  Now I'm spoiled and there's no going back to the slim  compact mattress that was barely wide enough to keep one skinny guy off the ground.  And since I'm spoiling myself, I might as well pack a real pillow.  Although the postage stamp-sized pillow that I used for the last decade compressed tightly and packed down to the size of a corn dog, if I'm being honest with myself, it never was really comfortable.

Hester - Packed for Action

Don't read me wrong here.  I have no regrets over the gear I purchased in 2010.  Indeed, it served me well on numerous camping trips.  Of equal importance to its longevity is the fact that it all packed neatly onto Hester in a single dry sack that fit on the passenger seat tucked between me and the backrest.  So given that fact, you may be asking yourself just how the hell Shrug will be able to pack all this larger gear and not look like the Clempetts when they loaded up the truck and they moved to Bever-lee...Hills, that is.  The answer is...I won't.  Although the new tent is compact, it still packs a bit larger than the old one.  That ranger sleeping bag could be rolled down to the size of a small coffee can, but the new double-sized bag that I plan to purchase comes with with extra padding and a thick flannel inner lining.  I'll be fortunate to be able to roll and compress this one down to the size of two BBQ grill propane tanks laid end-to-end.  And since we're talking comfort over compact, might as well make the new pillow a full-size memory foam one and a real chair to the mix.

The solution?  A trailer!  I've seen motorcycles pulling trailers for years and as it turns out, there's a plethora of models and styles available.  Once I decided to head back to the Arctic Circle, I also decided to find a way to bring more creature comforts this time.  I'd like to claim that my tastes have been refined, but the reality is I'm old and brittle and I just think I deserve it.  I started researching pull-behind motorcycle trailers and the first fact I learned is those damned things are expensive!  A company called Bushtec makes the Cadillac of motorcycle trailers.  Actually, make that the Mercedes Benz; way out of my league financially...even for the used ones  Besides the trailer itself, there's adapting the bike with a secure and robust hitch with witch to tow the trailer.  Even a moderately-loaded trailer will subject the motorcycle's rear end to torque and stress that it was never designed to handle, and negotiating the physics on two wheels is far more challenging than on four.  A good hitch kit is not cheap and a cheap hitch kit is probably not good.  Actually, it might be, but that's not a risk I am willing to assume on the roads and for the distance I will be riding.  Once the trailer is hitched to the motorcycle, it has to be wired to the brake lights and turn signals.  Research has taught me that this wiring is more complicated than just splicing the trailer harness to the brake lights like we do for cars.  The additional electrical load from the trailer's lights that can adversely affect the motorcycle's electrical system has to be countered.

I found a trailer that will do the job and that I can afford.  It's not the Cadillac by any means, It's not even a Ford.  I'd say it's somewhere between a Ford and a Yugo.  The bottom line is it is structurally sound, lightweight, and has more than enough room for the gear I plan to take; even with my full-sized pillow and super-sized sleeping bag.

Once I knew what I would be towing, finding a safe hitch system that would do the trick was easy and it turns out that hitch is manufactured by Bushtec.  I may not be able to afford their trailers, but I know I can't afford to use a cheap hitch and theirs is beefy and very well designed to distribute the stress on the motorcycle frame.  If the difficulty of installation is any indicator, the Bushtec hitch ought to perform like a Mercedes, although I suppose I'll settle for a Ford.  I was able to piece together and install a wiring harness that won't tax Hester's nervous system.  The trailer I bought has all LED indicators, so there's practically no measurable additional electrical load on the bike.  I registered and plated the trailer and am now fully prepared to hit the road...in-tow.

Beefy Struts for Reliability & a Removable Ball for Invisibility

I have six months to play around with towing practice and to sort out loading and weight distribution, all while finding the ideal packing arrangement to keep the tongue weight down.  The storage area's clam shell design has plenty of room.  In fact, it may have too much.  I suppose I can also pack oil for a mid-trip oil change, tools, and some more creature comforts as long as I don't go overboard. Still, I will have to figure out a means of  securing things in their place once they're packed.  The last thing I need is for my carefully-planned and strategically-packed supplies to be moving about inside the trailer unbeknownst to me until I hit the brakes or dive into a corner.  I will also have to develop my trailering skills.  The good news is I can barely tell the trailer is back there when I'm towing it.  The bad news is I can barely tell the trailer is back there when I'm towing it.  I can see where I could easily become complaisant and forget to leave sufficient room for curbs when cornering or obstructions when fueling up at a gas station.  Speaking of fuel, after eleven years, I can predict Hester's fuel consumption and range to within a few miles.  Now, I will have to become acquainted with the reduced mileage per tank.  It may feel like there's no trailer back there, but the motor will be well-aware of the additional load and by the time I leave, I should too.  All of this can be overcome with practice rides around town and on the highway; and as I said, I have six months.

Those who know me know I name things.  My orange Kubota tractor is named "Bevo".  My Saab 9-3 is named "Saabrina".  I even named my zero-turn mower "Twister".  You know where Hester's name came from, so it's fitting that I name the trailer "Pearl".  Stay tuned for updates on my skills progress and perhaps an improved look for Pearl.

No Cat in This Cradle

This is a re-post of an entry from ten years ago.

My father would be 85 years old today.  The photo below was taken when he was 52 years old.  Hard living aged him far beyond his calendar years.

If I weren’t agnostic, I suppose I could lay a lot of blame on Exodus 20:5.

So much of this trip is about finally getting to see Alaska. But I’m self-aware enough to recognize that it’s also about answering that primal urge all men get to simply get away and (at least temporarily) shed our responsibilities.  I think all men get this urge. It’s part of who we are.  How we handle it is part of what we are.  My father had it in the worst of ways and I clearly have it now.  It’s different for me however because I know that I know I’m going back home.  Read on and maybe this will make sense.

My father died 22 years ago this week. He was 53 years old. His death certificate listed the cause as “complications from Parkinson’s Disease.” But, the reality is even the most highly functional of alcoholic, workaholic chain smokers can’t outrun the legacy of a lifetime of hard living, hard liquor, and unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Short, but Most Popular
High School Junior Year

My father was born in 1935. A kid of short stature, he was too small for most sports, but his Type-A personality made him a class favorite in high school where he was a cheerleader and performed in a singing ensemble. Back then, a boy could do those things and people wouldn’t wonder if he was gay.  He was also incredibly bright and graduated Salutatorian of his 1953 class at Diamond Hill High School in Fort Worth.  My grandparents were hard working farming people who also owned and operated a diner. My grandfather was also a Methodist Lay Preacher. My father inherited from his parents a sincere work ethic that would shape his life and ultimately mine.

After serving an enlistment in the Air Force, my father, now a married man with three kids, went to work for a defense contractor that would eventually become known as E-Systems. He was a brilliant electrical engineer whose efforts were recognized by name in a citation signed by President Lyndon Johnson. When the Vietnam War started, E-Systems offered my father something he had never known; travel.

I remember walking through Love Field Airport one day with my father, my mom, and my two sisters. I was so taken with the hustle and bustle and all the sites an airport offers a young boy that I barely noticed the tears streaming down both my sisters' faces as we walked. I remember being transfixed on a big Braniff airliner that was parked outside the terminal window where we were waiting when my father hugged us all, said goodbye, and walked through the door; appearing outside on the tarmac shortly thereafter. I recall my mom saying "wave  goodbye to daddy." as he climbed the stairs and boarded the jet. I also recall wondering where he was going and why as I suddenly joined my sisters' tear fest.  I was five years old.

That trip to Thailand was the first in a long career of multi-year expatriate travel on which my father would embark throughout his career at E-Systems. Over the years, he would write and occasionally call. But phone calls from a war zone across the globe were a tall order in the 1960’s.  He always mailed birthday and Christmas gifts to us at home from wherever in the world he happened to be.

My father came back to the States a few times as I was growing up - for what seemed like short visits.  One time he and my mother re-married, which was odd to me because I don’t remember ever being told they were divorced in the first place. After two marriages and two divorces (these were to my mother; but there were others), my father moved to Europe for E-Systems and lived in Greece, France, and Germany before returning home for good during my high  school senior year.  Our relationship was cordial.  He was busy. I was busy.

My mom and I had several deep and revealing conversations before she died. Despite all she went through alone, she was concerned that I would hate my father for “abandoning” us.  Truth is, I never felt abandoned. My mom loved and supported my sisters and I in ways my father never could (or would) have. As an adult, I recognize her sense of abandonment  because she was left to raise three kids on her own.  I learned later that she accomplished this with little to no financial support from my father.  Still, many times over the years, she would say to me “no one in this world loves you more than your father.”

Not only did I never feel abandoned, I never hated my father. After all, hate is too powerful an emotion to waste on someone you don’t know.  There were times when I didn’t particularly like him and wondered aloud just who the hell he thought he was to try to enforce fatherly discipline upon me as a teenager, when in my mind he had not earned the right to do so.

In 1984 at the age of 48, my father was diagnosed with cardiopulmonary stress syndrome.  His doctor told him that unless he had a heart/lung transplant soon, he probably wouldn’t live to see 50. By this point, he had accepted an executive position at E-Systems and was living minutes from where I grew up. I was in the Air Force, stationed in Austin, was married, and had two sons of my own by then. I remember him telling me he decided not to have the surgeries.  I also remember not being the least bit surprised or, strangely enough, even saddened by his decision.

In 1989, upon being notified his condition had taken a turn for the worst, and that this was probably it, I headed home to Dallas from Austin for the first time in almost three years.  On his last day, as I literally carried him to and from the toilet, his frail body twitching uncontrollably and him barely lucid from the effects of advanced Parkinson’s, I remember thinking to myself “I will never put my sons through this.”  He beat the doctor’s prediction by three years and he died, just as he lived, on his terms.

Despite his being gone most of my life, I’m pretty sure I loved my father because I still feel a strange sense of loss (or maybe just  a void) 22 years after his passing. In a sense, he made me the father and dad that I am to my sons. During my Air Force years, I was faced with a similar career choice that my  father had himself faced 30 years earlier. I was offered an opportunity to get involved with a clandestine field intelligence element within the Air Force; a career path that would have me globe trotting year round. It was at this time I had an epiphany of sorts that not only helped me arrive at the right decision, but helped me reconcile how I truly felt about my father.  He grew up in a home with both parents and never knew what it was like to not have a dad there. It was easy for him to choose career over family because he had no clue what the ramifications to others would be for doing so.  I had the foresight of knowing what effect the career decision I faced would have on my sons - and I chose accordingly. I like to think my father gave me some of his intelligence, but the willingness and insight to be not just a father, but to be a dad is something I know he gave me.

When I look at my sons and contemplate the men they’ve grown to be I quietly, yet proudly acknowledge that there are no cats in their cradles.  If I’ve done my job right, the feline population in their kids’ cradles should be nonexistent as well.

I win, Exodus; at least where the cat and cradle are concerned.

From a Better Place

"Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance."

- David Mamet

(I wonder if anyone will get this reference)

Ten years is a long time.  It's almost a decade! 😃  In thinking this return trip through, it occurred to me that much will have changed from 2011 to 2021.  The roads up there certainly should be in better condition, shouldn't they?  There was a great deal of construction in 2011 along the ALCAN that should have been completed years ago and thus should yield a much smoother ride in 2021.  I suppose also that those improvements could have run full cycle over the years and the roads could be just as bad from wear, or possibly even worse ten years after.  Rest assured, I will be prepared for whatever the ALCAN throws at me.  I may be older, but I'm experienced and knowing what to expect is half the battle.

Hester Down

Hester is also ten years older. And while some may raise an eyebrow over riding a twelve year-old motorcycle into such unpredictable terrain, I have as much confidence in the old girl now as I did in 2011.  Just as Hester Prynne was older, stronger, wiser, and even admired at the conclusion of "The Scarlet Letter", Hester the Road Glide was rebuilt from the ground up after being totaled in a highway crash in 2016.  My injuries from the crash were minor and I was crossing the Australian Outback on a dirt bike a month later.  But I digress.

Hester also has a new stronger 110 cubic inch motor, Öhlins shocks, and more ergonomically comfortable handlebars.  All of these improvements yield a more comfortable and most importantly, a more reliable ride.  Over time, Hester Prynne also became a respected member of her 1649 Puritan Massachusetts Bay colony.  My Hester and I have become known as an iron butt long haul ride team in my motorcycling community.  We recently completed a 1,400 mile ride from Gettysburg, PA back to Texas in a 20 hour straight shot.

Thinking introspectively, there is another change in ten years; a significant one.  I have changed.  If you read my original blog post or watched the Alaskapade! 2011 video, you will recall that I was not in an emotionally healthy place at that time in my life.  Striking out alone to parts unknown on a motorcycle with no real itinerary was probably not the smartest of ideas.  But I was driven (no pun intended) to get as far away as possible and part of me honestly didn't care if I ever came back.  I was fairly certain back then that few others cared if I returned either.  I won't elaborate on the reasons or details here.  If you knew me well then, you understand.  If you didn't, it doesn't matter because my emotions were clear in the video and in my writing.  It's irrelevant at this point because those days are gone and I am not the same guy I used to be.  This trip will be different from the onset because I am coming from a better place in my life.

I have since moved to the country and adapted to a slower pace in life.  I am wholly content with my family and social life.  I probably interact with horses and chickens more than I do with people. I am starting to see the fruit of my lifetime of labor and savings to the point where there's a light at the end of the retirement tunnel and I'm fairly certain it's not a train heading at me.  Most importantly, I no longer feel financially necessary yet otherwise insignificant like I did a decade ago.  Whether or not that was actually the case, it was how I felt and it drove and motivated me.  I will head to Alaska this time with a focus on where I am going as opposed to looking in the rearview mirror and choking down the feeling that no matter how far I went, I wasn't far enough away.

Friends and liars
Don't wait for me
Cause I'll get on
All by myself
I put millions of miles
Under my heels
And still too close
To you, I feel

- Chris Cornell - Audioslave

That tune follows a prolific point in the Alaskapade! 2011 video where I started to open up about where I was emotionally.  But quoting the unnamed serf in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "I got better".

I have a request.  Take time to re-read my Alaskapade chronological blog entry.  I read it last week and realized that I really never had before.  I just wrote it and posted it.  Am I conceited to say that I really enjoyed my own writing?  I had been told by many that it was really descriptive and well-written and after reading it, I kinda agree.  Also, re-watch the Alaskapade! 2011 video.  I believe that while the video definitely compliments the written account, it doesn't tell the whole story as well on its own.  The tunes in the soundtrack to the video were selected specifically for the time in the video at which they appear and the lyrics matter.

Speaking of videos, I won't commit to producing a video for this trip.  The amount of work that went into the original was far more than I anticipated and I had expert help from a friend whose interest, time, and availability I can't predict ten years later.  The prospect of having other riders along for this trip further complicates things in terms of producing a video.  I was completely open with my emotions from start to finish in 2011.  They were mine and mine alone.  Putting the good, the bad, and the ugly out there for all to see was one thing when it was my good, my bad, and my ugly.  Broadcasting others' emotions, actions, achievements, and failures could potentially be an issue and I am not interested in seeking permission from others to express myself.  So while a video is possible, I make no promises.