With apologies to Robert Pirsig and the Chautauqua Institute
Anticipation
I’ve bought all the stuff, just waiting for one more thing to arrive. It’s a nice to have, but not a necessity for the trip. I’ve printed the maps. I’ve thinned my to-do list significantly, so I don’t have stuff piled up when I return. I’ve set up the tent and tested it. Now I just want to get on the bike and go.
Patience has never been my strong suit.
Now it’s the day before. Just about everything is done short of packing the motorcycle. I have a few odds and ends to take care of, but nothing major. A week ago, I set a countdown clock on my laptop to remind me that I had a limited amount of time to get things accomplished. It’s weird to look at it and see the day column read zero. Off we go!
Obfuscation
As mentioned previously, I’m trying to surprise my Mom by just showing up. What’s funny about this is that my parents generally trek down here to Georgia in the fall, so I had to get on the phone with Mom to plan out dates we might be available for their trip, which I don’t expect them to take due to the pandemic.
I tried to make Georgia sound even worse than it really is right now, particularly emphasizing our rising case counts and death rate. It was surprisingly easy since the data looks bad. I didn’t have to exaggerate any of it. I had just forgotten how badly we’re faring here.
Frustration
I wasn’t really in any place to write last night when I stopped, so this is hindsight. It’s also being written in the semidarkness of a KOA campground sunset near a creek, where I have a lovely tent site.
I left a little later than planned. Suzanne seemed down that I was going to leave before she left for work in the morning, so I decided to leave when she did. Well, then I set the alarm for 7:30AM to get a little more sleep, and that was overly ambitious. We didn’t get out of the house until about 20 minutes before 9:00AM, and I know Suzanne was a little late for work because I had to pass right by her office on my way out of Georgia.
I was moving along reasonably until lunchtime, which was at a great little BBQ joint northeast of Knoxville, TN called Archer’s BBQ. I recommend the Tennessee Cheesesteak, consisting of brisket, cheese, and your choice of sweet or spicy sauce. It comes with a side item, too. I had okra.
Before I get into the frustration, notes on traveling via motorcycle. People feel the need to talk to you, to find out where you came from and where you’re going. If you’re in the deep south and you answer “Maine,” you get a few astonished looks, though nobody wants to admit their thoughts on that.
Also, everyone has a motorcycle story. In this particular BBQ joint, it was a young bullet-headed redneck who opened with the conversational gamut “What size is that thing?” He was speaking of the motorcycle. This led to him telling about a recent wreck he had on an older Ninja that he believed to be a 1200, showing me the remnants of his road rash, and saying how he was glad he hadn’t landed on his head, since “we don’t wear helmets in Kentucky.”
After lunch, I headed back out onto the Rutledge Pike, aka 11W. This is where the frustration sets in. There were a variety of twists and turns to the route. Alas, I missed a key one, and ended up quite a distance from where I was supposed to be. I discovered this at a Marathon gas station in Mooresburg, TN. I bought a water and a couple York Peppermint Patties, took a few Advil to quiet my aching knees, and gave up on my written directions in favor of Google Maps on my phone to try and make some miles and correct my mistake.
About a hundred miles or so later, I stopped for gas, and discovered I had lost my wallet.
I’m not going to go into the depths of craziness I went through with Wells Fargo, whose card-free ATM refused to work for me. I spent probably an hour on the phone with them and drove to two ATMs. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except for the fact they couldn’t figure out how to get me any money, and these ATMs were 30 miles apart. Meanwhile, I’m running low on fuel. I had found $2.00 in quarters in my tank bag and gassed up as much as that would get me, but straits were a bit dire. Finally, I had Suzanne wire me some cash via Western Union. This also turned out to be a bit of a mess, as of two of the places that supposedly had Western Union, one had stopped doing it after a change in ownership, one had a broken machine. Finally, I managed to get some cash at a grocery store that thankfully had fuel, as well.
While I was getting the money, Suzanne arranged a hotel room for me, since she didn’t think I’d be in any mood to find a campground after all that. She was right. I enjoyed a room and a warm bed.