Don't F-ck Up the Rotation

I started this one back in November while at a training class in Austin.  Finally finished it up this week.

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Puff, Puff, Give

This may seem a little off topic for the ride blog, but stick with me.  I’ll tie it up at the end

My daily schedule is a pretty regimented thing: Wake up, get ready, drive to work, go to lunch, work, drive home, play with the kids, do baths and bedtimes, fight with the kids to go to sleep, visit with my wife.  Go to bed.

Looks kind of boring written out but there is a nice kind of symmetry to the whole thing and all of the time spent is pretty meaningful.

There never seems to be time for anything else.  You tend to wonder what it might be like to have lots more time for hobbies and entertainment.  I’ve been out of town for training all this week.  The training starts at 9 and ends at 4:30.  I also have a 5 minute commute from the hotel to the classroom.  This leaves my evenings completely, frighteningly free.

Here is what I have done with all that time:

• Bought a t-shirt
• Played over 10 hours of Borderlands 2 (Of course I brought the Playstation)

No blog entries, no ride planning, no ride prep.  No desperately needed budget/financial planning work, no writing.  What the hell is wrong with me.  I’m always bitching about a lack of free time.  It’s why I can’t get anything done on the bike or house.  Apparently not.

When you have the time to do something, do you have the passion?  The energy? Doesn’t seem like I do this week.  So what is the real problem here?  Maybe the training is really taxing  (It is a bit dry and hard to concentrate).  Maybe I just don’t do well in Hotels.  Maybe it’s just suburban Austin (crowded as shit and less comfortable than home).

Nah.  It’s a fucked-up rotation thing.  Messing up my routine depresses the hell out of me. Depression = 0 motivation. I miss my kids, I miss wife.  All I want to do is glut myself on sleep and blow shit up on the playstation.

It all boils down to the Chi you get from a meaningful, well balanced schedule.  Even if it seems cumbersome at times.  At the risk of sounding boring, I like having everything regular and well oiled.  I get all cagey if you move things around.

Or maybe it’s just that regular life is just that nice.  Think about it, I started this whole blog out by talking about how good things are.  Maybe that’s why changing the schedule is depressing.  Because life really is pretty damn good.

So what happens when I radically change my schedule to ride across the country?  I can’t afford to go all dark.  I’ve got some 450-mile days and I really need to keep the schedule.  This shit is a stretch.  I need to be up and peppy with a badass outlook on life.  Here is the beautifully conventional way I’ll do it:  Create routine.

I’ll even write it all down.  “Here is the list for arriving at camp.  Here is the list for packing up in the morning.”  One of my favorite parts of flight training was the lists.  There are friggin’ lists for everything.  There is even a goddamn list of all the lists you are supposed to have with you whenever you fly. 

Will checklists be enough to cure “routine-interruption sickness”?  I’m not sure but it is certainly worth a shot.

I Have Reservations (not really)

In no particular order and with no sense of singular purpose, here is what’s going on.

Reservations.  Did you catch that?  Reservations.  Every day of this last week and running through my head all the time. Book the hotels.  Book the flights.  Book the bike trailer for the return trip.  Book parking at the Miami airport for the truck and trailer so they are waiting patiently when J drags the children off the plane.  Oh, and book the state parks too…and the Disney portion.

For this trip, there are 17 nights worth of lodging, 4 flights, one trailer and one long term parking spot.  I figure I’m about 1/3 the way booked for the trip.  The research on all these places is done.  Now I just need to book them all.  It’s going to take a couple of weeks.  

There is also some mental pressure going on here.  There is only 3 months left and booking things makes the trip real…or realer than it was when it was all in spreadsheet.

So yeah, reservations.

Bike Tech.  Since the last ride, the bike has been upgraded in the following ways:

• Sheepskin seat cover (looks pimp but that’s not the point)
• Windshield the size of a screen door (does not look pimp but is quickly removable with quick release mounting hardware-take 5 seconds to pull off the whole thing)
• Plexiglass hand protectors for each hand
• Bigger drybag so packing up won’t take 3 hours (its black and awfully fashionable)

Essentially, every aspect of the bike has changed.  I rode it the other night.  It was too damn cold to spend much time at highway speed but it felt completely different.  Better wind protection on the shoulders and head but a ton of wind now on the legs.  The bike is also a little squirrelly but I think that has more to do with my tension than actual performance. 

Still, I need to log some time above 70 to test all this out.  If there are delays on the trip, I may have to do long sessions above 70 MPH to get back on track…or else I might lose one of the 503 reservations noted above.

Documentation.  How to tell the story?  This blog has a small, yet very distinguished readership.  I doubt very seriously that any media I put on it will lead to an Oprah interview (hopefully), but maybe in 20 years the kids will want to understand what I was thinking.  Or see how we really dressed.  Or see how Dad looked before his face turned into dried leather (relatively speaking of course).

Here is what I decided:

• Daily video report to the J and the kids:  I’ll just video myself talking about the day and how much I miss them.  I’ll edit in some pics from that day’s ride.  I’ll end each video with a fun fact about Disney and picture of one of the parks.  This should get them good and excited for that trip.
• Daily Blogposts:  These will be in roughly the same format as the last ride report.  I promise less text and more pictures.  Unless I have something terribly witty, insightful or profane to say.
• Daily Video Diary:  Just a stream-of-consciousness recording for a couple of minutes a day.  This is mainly for the kids to watch when they get older.  Not sure if it will make it to the blog or not.  I just don’t think it will be all that compelling.
• I have some other ideas but I want to hold off on those for now. 

Videos huh?  Crap.  That means I need to look into a laptop to take on the trip…but that’s okay because I can use it to update….Reservations.

Trip Update and the Tyranny of Too Much Lead Time

The only constant is change.  There have been times throughout this process, most of the time actually, that I was ready to say “To hell with this prep and waiting bullshit, I’m leaving tomorrow.”  Reality quickly intervenes and I’m reminded of the magnitude of this trip.  Lets recap, shall we?

Total Trip time of 14 days. 

The first seven days will consist of me riding from my driveway, down to the southernmost tip of the Texas coastline and then all the way to the southernmost tip of Florida (Key West) using only coastal roads. 

The second seven days involves a family trip to Disney World and leisurely drive across the south to get back home.

There is also a quick pretrip drive from Houston to Miami to drop off the truck for the family trip.  This will take place the week before I leave for South Padre Island (southernmost(ish) tip of Texas).

This is not something you put together overnight.  Like any big endeavor, you break into smaller pieces, schedule it all out and knock out the challenges one by one.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re going to Key West or the friggin’ moon, this is the way you do it.

I’ve been at it for about 7 months now. Gathering and testing the gear, making the modifications to the bike, researching lodgings for the ride and the family trip.  All the individual, little pieces.

Last month I did a quick overnight camping ride to practice some techniques.  A good bit of the ride was along a coastal stretch of highway.  Every two minutes or so, the fun part of my brain would say “WE’RE GOIN TO FLORIDA”.  Then it would demand that I turn the goddamn bike back to the east and ride until New Orleans.  After all, I had all the gear on the bike.  I could have logistically done it.  That’s when I knew that I would never make it to next fall.

Thus, in a discussion with J later that week, the trip moved from September to April.  I bumped this trip up 4 months.  In all the projects I’ve managed and worked on, I have never seen, nor heard of a project that retained the original scope, yet shaved 40% off of the schedule. 

My cousin is in the 82^nd airborne (US Army).  Within a couple of years of enlisting, he finished medic training, was promoted multiple times and made it into the 82^nd.  When I asked him how he accomplished all of that so quickly, he shrugged and said “We have a saying, shit happens when you’re motivated”.  It does, It has.

Still, while riding in the sunshine with water on both sides of the road, you don’t think about the prep work.  You forget the hours of planning, the endless wrenchwork and all the research.  From the top of the mountain you don’t think about the climb, you think about the view.

As usual, my wife cleared my vision a bit.  “This is the biggest thing you’ve ever planned and I’ve never known anyone else that took on something like this.”  It was both a nice thing for her to say and something I really needed to hear.  The message I took away is, don’t take this lightly just because the planning has gone so well, so far.  Give yourself credit and don’t underestimate this trip or it will kick your ass, especially with the schedule change. 

She also seemed genuinely excited about the trip.  Seeing it laid out, day by day on the computer screen made it real.  She began to see the enormity of the logistics and how everything was fitting together.  Ironically, she is behind most of the refinements to the schedule.  But the point is, seeing it through her eyes made it new for me again.

So much has changed.  Remember when I wanted to book passage back to Houston on a freighter?  (I still want to do that someday)  Yet, almost all the change has been for the better.  We have had some unpleasant surprises but everyone is healthy and we’re still doing pretty good.   

Don’t get me wrong, this trip is still risky.  Bad shit can happen quick on a bike.  Bad shit can happen on a camping trip, or the highway or at a rest stop.  Forgetting the big stuff, there will be little problems along the way.  Little problems can add up and become big.  Mechanical problems can force delays.  An accident or injury changes things dramatically.

Change is the only constant.  But we change to adapt.  I know I have.  Despite all of the risks, you just get to a point where you’re ready to go.  I’m almost there.  I have until late March to finish up but I distinctly feel like it will be too much time.  It can’t come soon enough.

Camping ride through the Upper Texas Gulf Coast. Finally, some salt.

Chasing your shadow down East Texas freeways is glorious.  Especially on roads you have never ridden before.

That was me last Thursday night.  I was on highway 90 headed northeast to the Piney Woods of East Texas.  My destination was Village Creek State Park in Lumberton but the real story is the ride:  A 300 mile loop around Southeast Texas and the Upper Texas Gulf Coast in the cool breezes of early November.

Here is the route I took.  Purple is Thursday night and Red is Friday morning.

I left work about 2:30 and shot straight out 90 towards Liberty.  The highway was fantastic and the only downside was getting owned by a guy on Goldwing that I didn’t see coming in my rearview.  I don’t like going much over 70 when loaded down. 

I got to the State Park just before 5 and set up camp.  I had just finished up just as a guy in a huge fifth wheel travel trailer backed into the site next door.  I figure he might have been about twenty feet from my tent.  I picked everything up and moved it to a much more secluded spot.  I never felt like I was in the woods though.  It felt more like camping at Stephen F Austin park, that is to say that it felt like camping in a friend’s front yard.

But Thank God the State Park had one of these:

The evening was nice and relaxing.  Dinner from a pouch and a movie (Hunger Games) on my phone in the heated tent. 

My air mattress died so I didn’t get great sleep.  Up the next morning.  Since I’d done the bike camping thing before, I figured it would only take an hour or so to get packed up and ready to ride.  It took two and half hours. I am going to get bigger bags.  Things pack up great in the garage but at the campsite, it’s a different story.  I need to be able to stow and go.

After I got everything packed and on the bike, I realized that I didn’t have the bike keys!  They were STILL IN THE GODDAMN TENT!          The tent that was packed under two bags, a chair and 3 ropes. 

Thankfully, I had placed a spare key on the bike in a very accessible location.  Still, it took a couple of seconds to remember all this and the litany of filth that issued forth from my growling mouth was one for the textbooks. I grabbed the spare, apologized to any trees I might have offended and started the bike.  It was friggin’ time to go.

I was headed south to Beaumont.  Grabbed I-10 over to Winnie (worst stretch of the ride) and then took 124 South to High Island.  I loved that road.  Long and flat with green fields and a few muddy brown canals.  The sun was set to ultrabright and everything looked clean and vibrant. 

I am a coastal person. As I got closer to the ICW (Intracoastal waterway) I could feel my batteries begin to recharge (they run on salty air).  I noticed a very unlikely looking bridge in the distance.  Surely I wasn’t expected to ride over that damn thing.  No, surely not.

It looked much steeper from down the road.

Once I got on the bridge though, it was actually quite exhilarating and I had to fight the urge to stop at the top and get off.  I’m doin’ it next time (and there WILL be a next time as this is the way I will go on the big ride).

I stopped at the bottom to snap some shots and take in the ICW.  Remember, this deep ass channel goes from Boston, down through Florida and all the way over to Brownsville at the Texas/Mexico Border.  I’ve fished it many times and I love to watch the tugboats cruising down this unassuming river.

South of the channel lies High Island.

Anybody familiar with this area will know about the oil boom that occurred in the early 1900’s.  It’s pretty much why Houston is what it is.

These "Nodding Donkey" oil pumps are pretty common around here.

High Island gets its name from the salt dome it sits on.  From Wikipedia:

A salt dome is a type of structural dome formed when a thick bed of evaporite minerals (mainly salt, or halite) found at depth intrudes vertically into surrounding rock strata, forming a diapir. It is important in petroleum geology because salt structures are impermeable and can lead to the formation of a stratigraphic trap [where oil and gas collect].

Salt Domes are also used to store Natural Gas.  Back in ’92, the one near Brenham exploded.  A little boy was killed and we heard the explosion 70 miles away in Houston.

I’m not sure if they store natural gas in the High Island dome but I have never heard of any issues in this area.

Finally, I made the eventual turn west towards Crystal Beach

I’d been to Crystal Beach countless times, but never from this way.  I love coming at familiar towns from different directions.  It’s like having old friends do something that surprises you (in a good way).

The ride across the Bolivar was really nice.  Remember, this area was flattened during Hurricane Ike back in 2008.  The week before the storm, we rented a beach house out here for J’s 40^th b-day party.  One week later, after the storm surge subsided, all that was left of the house was, literally, a dark spot on the sand (More IKE stuff here).

Bolivar after Hurricane Ike

The community is coming back nicely.  The area will always have a storm wracked look to it though.  It’s just the nature of life out here.  Every 20 years or so, the Gulf rises up to reset the land.

I passed through Crystal Beach to my favorite part of the ride, the Ferry from Bolivar to Galveston.  Everyone should ride this Ferry at some point!

image from Bolivar Chamber of Commerce

I’ve never ridden a bike onto a boat before.  It was friggin’ cool!.

The ride across the bay is about 20 minutes.  Just enough time to relax, stretch legs and take pictures.  The Ferry ride is just one big, orgasmic photo opp.

Lets get to it…

The flags were flying at Half mast in respect of the National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

You can see some interesting ships on this ride.  A few years back, J and I saw the USS Texas (attack submarine) launched from the Port of Galveston to Galveston Bay.

No such luck today though.  Still, there was maritime eye candy to be had…

...and one lonely Sailboat.

And a buttload of seagulls.

They were our fighter escort across the bay.

As we got close to shore, I got ready to go.

You can't tell but I'm smiling :)

Off the Ferry and through the Historical Strand district.  I could go on and on about the Strand but I’m only going to pick one thing to highlight right now.  The last time we were there with the kids, we met an amazing artist named Elizabeth Punches.  She graciously invited us into her studio.  Her work is amazing (my art commentary does not do justice).  See it here: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethPunchesStudioAndGallery.  I wanted to stop by but I was really behind schedule.

I stopped at Yaga’s for “a quick” lunch.

Recommendation:  DON’T go to Yaga’s.  The food, service and facilities were terrible.  I think it may be the only bad meal I’ve ever had on the Strand.

Nice view though.

Over the causeway to connect up with Highway 6. I’ve never been on this road before.  It skirts Houston to the west and goes all the up past 59.  The first bit was really cool.  Did you know that there was a military dirigible (think nazi-sub hunting blimp) base in Hitchcock back in WW2?  I didn’t.

Santa Fe is about where the magic ended.  Then it was just solid traffic and stoplights all the way up to Richmond.  I took Richmond to Eldridge because I lived there during College.  Nice to see the old neighborhood.  I took Eldridge all the way home.

What a great ride.  I didn’t feel the same level of sadness that I felt during the first camping ride.  I’ve gotten better at this. The packing, the prep work, the being alone.  Its getting easier.  

I still missed my wife and kids and I felt a little guilty that they weren’t experiencing what I was.  But it was much less pronounced than last time.  

I found areas in my packing and gear approach that will need work.  

I got a taste of what the coastal ride will be like (fucking glorious) and hardened myself to long days in the saddle (5.5 hours from camp to garage).

If anything, riding along the coast surpassed my expectations. More please!

…And here is something that I wasn’t going to include in this entry.  It looks like this trip may be happening in April instead of September!!! More on that happy detail later J

Crunching the Numbers

Guess what.  Its budget time.  Time to find out what all this shit will cost.  Time to break down every bit of enjoyment and adventure and assign a dollar value (with taxes included).

You see, if we start the budget process now, we can walk away as soon as it starts to look scary.  We can take time to mentally process the numbers and go back.  After one or two nervous breakdowns, it will get done, right?  I hope so.

I started by figuring out all the lodging, then food, then fuel.  I then had a panic attack and had to stop.  I think the total for all of this was around 3 grand.

Second round will be adding in required equipment like trailer rentals, parking the return vehicle at Miami airport for a week and any maintenance costs associated with the truck or bike.

Keep in mind that this will include a 5-day family trip to Orlando with all the trimmings.

I also need to factor in my flight back to Miami from Houston and the family’s flights from Houston to Miami.  Remember, the plan is for me to drive the Armada (with a bike trailer) out to Miami before the trip and then fly home.  J and the kids would then fly out to Miami, pick up the Armada and meet me down in Key Largo for the last leg of the ride to Key West.  We will then trailer the bike and drive north to Wally…ahem…Disney World.

I would also like to add a few hundred dollars to donate to a charity while on the ride. (explained in a future blog post)

My desire to stash away cash is always in a war with my desire to go do things.  College is expensive.  You can never save enough for retirement (I have real world examples of how important this is). But you have to live for the here and now as well.

As all of this adds up, I am forced to ask the difficult question.  If we can’t afford this trip right now, what do I do?  Do I change the plan and maybe shorten the route/activities?  I guess we could just hit the Texas Gulf coast.  I could then meet J and the kids in South Padre.  This would be lot cheaper. 

Or do I just reschedule the whole damn thing for another year when things look better? 

No. 

There are always 100 reasons not to do something. 

Stash the cash now, suck it up, go have the adventure. 

In 15 years, my kids won’t remember how much money I saved in 2012, they will remember that Mom and Dad took them to Key West, Disney World and across the country back home, all of us together.

Holiday Roads?

Quick age check here:

What comes to mind when you think of a cross country trip to visit a movie-character based themed park?

If you said Wallyworld, I concur.  Who remembers the sad little leash dangling behind the bumper?

Imagine my surprise then when I looked at the schedule and noticed that Jules and kids would be riding with me to South Padre.  I recently discussed the concept with my wife and she was mildly concerned about the logistics.

I don’t know why my wife won’t agree to follow me all the way down to South Padre with our two kids while towing a motorcycle trailer and then drive home by herself (with the kids and the trailer) the next day.   Some people are just really selfish.

Actually she agreed to do it (she has yet to push back on anything about this trip) but seeing as how I like her a whole lot, I changed my plans.

Originally, we were going to all drive down to South Padre so I could say goodbye to my family, dip the keys in the southernmost part of Texas shoreline and ride away from the border faster than the Cartel mules and Coyotes.  I really want to do it this way.  I just can’t see putting everyone through it.  The kids will be miserable, J hates towing things and they will only be in South Padre long enough to regret having to leave so soon.  No bueno.

So, I added another day to my ride trip and decided to ride from home down to South Padre by myself.  This will make for one of the longest ride days (370 miles) and will be mostly ugly-ass highway.  But, I will be able to embark from my driveway and there is something very cool about that.

Plus, J and the kids will still meet me in Galveston two days later.  I had hoped that they would be able to show up at least three times along the way but we’re already pulling them out of school for the whole next week (family trip to Orlando after Key West)

The change highlights the absolute need for realism and flexibility when locking down a schedule.  As I start to book hotels and campsites, I have to use Project Manager eyes, not daydreamy biker eyes.  It is hard to make the switch but I find the logistical approach somewhat fortifying.

The change also highlights the other big problem with the trip: How do I spend 6 nights away from my family?  I recently went to Austin for a week of training.  I know it was hard on J and the kids.  My son repeatedly asked me to just skip the training and come home right now.  I was a wreck for most of the trip and I really don't feel like it was worth it.

The kids are not going to understand why I need to be away.  I’m not sure I do either.  This trip is worth doing.  Not just for me but for the family too.  The Key West and Disney trip after the ride will be epic.  Something the kids will remember their whole lives.  Plus, its an adventure.  But I just can’t stop feeling like a selfish bastard about the whole thing.

How in the shit did Ewan and Charlie stand being gone for so damn long (3 months)?  What do you say to yourself to make that okay?  I don’t have the answers.  It remains my one big concern regarding this trip.  I welcome any and all advice.

Daddy, what did you bring me?

So here is something I just thought of, how do I handle souvenirs?  The last time I crossed multiple states (mid 90’s move from San Fran back home), I grabbed a few little souvenirs from every state.

This time it will not just be shot glasses and cigarette lighters.  Now I have a family to think of.  And a little swag will go a long way towards healing the resentment that childless camping will cause.  Yes, I will bribe my children with knick-knacks.  Who the hell wouldn't? ;-)

Buying these things will be great fun but they better be pretty damn small.  As it is, I pretty much fill all of my luggage with necessities for the trip (food, water, skivvies, etc.) 

So here are a couple of options I am thinking of:

1)    Leave an extra bag empty for stuff.  Unless I plan to forgo clothing, I don’t know where the space would come from.  I added a luggage rack and a sissy bar bag since the last camping trip, but I will need to take more food for the long haul.  I guess I could add a tank bag or something, but damn, I’m already overpacked.

2)    Shove the damn things wherever they might fit and then UPS them several times throughout the trip.

3)    Combination of 1 and 2.

I guess it will have to be option 3.  I think I will just have to leave one of my saddlebags half empty and then mark a few Pack and Send places along the trip routes. 

At the end of the debate season, I leave you with some of my favorite lyrics from the Avett Brothers: Head full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise,

            When nothing is owed or deserved or expected

And your life doesn’t change by the man that’s elected

If you’re loved by someone, you’re never rejected

Decide what to be and go be it