Slower Traffic

I got pulled over the other evening on my way in to work on my wife's 150cc Vespa. I was following a very erratic van on Highway One and when at last the was a long open stretch of highway with no oncoming traffic and a dotted yellow line. I went for it. The van driver realized to his horror a moped was passing him. He sped up. I slowed to slip back in behind him. He slowed down to keep me in the oncoming lane. I sped up. he sped up. I said "fuck it" and kept going by now running out of passing room. As I entered the nom passing been an oncoming car convinced the van I was serious, but unfortunately the oncoming car was a sheriff's deputy. He was very kind when I explained my predicament and I got a verbal warning and arrived at work with four minutes to spare.

Two days ago I was following this silver excrescence into Key West and he was doing a magnificent job of sitting in the passing lane at 50 in a 55 and plowed imperturbably into Stock Island blocking the left lane as he went. "Slower Traffic Keep Right" the signs instruct but he wasn't reading signs. He ducked into the right lane at the last minute to turn right into Key West and as I came alongside I saw a gray haired man my age, who should know better - texting.

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Summer In Key West

Most people who live year round in Key West enjoy summer and I dare say, empirically, that most of them might very well prefer summer to winter.

Essentially there are two seasons in Key West, cool and dry and hot and and humid. I'm speaking in broad terms and winter is what the Keys are renowned for, when snow drifts are making life miserable Up North and the sun is shining down here.

However the bit I find odd is how people run "home" to furnaces in Iowa and Kansas in the summer as though escaping summer temperatures in the nineties moderated by sea breezes is a smart idea when you end up on a blasted heath with temperatures well above 100. I have been in Kansas in summer and it's no picnic, I can tell you.

Key West by comparison is refreshed periodically by downpours which bring all the excitement of crashing thunder and cracks of wild lightning strong winds and cool temperatures at least for a while.

It's true that winter is the season of culture in town with plays, visiting literary figures (also escaping the vicissitudes of winter) and all sorts of performances that enliven the town. However for those that seek the serenity of summer winter is a time when the town pullulates with people.

Once upon a time Key West died a tourist death each summer and the town suffered scarcity. These days we get visitors in summer and it's a different kind of tourist that fills the coffers in the "slow season." This is the time of year families come to Key West when school's out and foreigners populate the sidewalks of Duval Street.

However you can still fire a cannon down some streets and not hit anybody which, I have to admit, is really nice. No lines in restaurants, easy car parking and lots of peace and quiet for my headless dog to snuffle the sidewalks.

The city looks nicer too. Check out this off street parking spot: no car! Of course it may not be in Kansas, it might just be at work across town.

The date palms are flowering and looking good.

Later in the year the dates will go red but they won't mature properly I am told that's because the Keys aren't hot enough and dry enough to replicate a proper desert environment.

Some heavy handed irony will close out this essay on the best season of the year in Key West.

If we got two inches of snow in summer that would be interesting. Even though snow flurries have been recorded in the Keys the idea of frost ice or settled snowflakes is absurd enough to merit the sign. One inch would have been enough.


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A Mountain Bonneville

I have been feeling trapped at the bottom of Flatistan this summer. After last year's bad boat season the skiff is in the shop trying to get made whole for August boating, while on line I have been reading about assorted riding adventures on the ADVrider forum.

Here I am with a perfectly capable motorcycle, 62,000 happy miles on it and several easy long distance rides successfully completed with it. I had the bike, I had the will, and I found I could make the time. Time to ride that is...so by way of experiment off I went.

Travel with Cheyenne requires a car and my wife suggested that might be the way to go but what I was seeking with the experiment was solitude and adventure, by way of my motorcycle.

When I was a youngster I rode my motorcycle most of the time and even though my rides of the mid to late 70s might look inadequate today in a world of huge heavy bikes fully equipped with all electronic gadgets, I rode the length and breadth of Europe and North Africa as a young adult and enjoyed it all with a canvas tent and Michelin road maps as guides.

My machinery rarely let me down and occasional mechanical problems were attributable to operator error (dropping the bike for example!) or modifications to the factory specs that created unintended consequences that led to wear and tear. As a result I love to keep my bike as factory standard as possible. Those engineers work long hours to create the machine in the first place and I restrict myself to spending money to keep it in best condition.

The Bonneville left home with an oil seep from the valve cover, a common problem if the gaskets and washers aren't replaced every valve check, every 12,000 miles. The oil seep is negligible but annoying and I chose to ignore it. It gave me no trouble during the 2500 mile jaunt. I have an appointment for a tune up and that will be fixed by my main man Jiri.

I read with some astonishment how modern riders prepare for their summer trips, vast expenditures on electronics and spares and tools and quantities of luggage that make the motorcycle an RV and less a riding tool, the magic carpet that is so much fun to ride daily. I appreciate that many "motorcyclists" are engineers and dabblers, shoppers and "consumers" who take pleasure from wires and electrons and catalogues. For me the magic I was seeking in this trip was the ride untrammeled.

I carried a handful of simple tools to tighten nuts and bolts and perhaps adjust the chain which proved necessary 500 miles from home, a ten minute job. While for camping I had a tarp and a light blanket as I planned to sleep rough with the option of a motel as often as necessary. I had some clothes and my daily courier bag with my iPad camera and maps. In the spirit of the trip I had no GPS and I managed to accidentally leave behind a map of Tennessee where I proposed to ride the most. I had my new Kermit chair for roadside rests and thoroughly enjoyed it. I got lost, had no cell phone reception and it was all just perfect.

For some time I have marveled at the youngsters I work with at the Key West Police Department, equipped with well paid jobs and ample time off yet not many of them take the time to explore the world beyond the narrow confines of "The Rock" as we call Key West when are tired of it's constrictions. I felt some trepidation at leaving my comfortable home for a few days alone on the road but that didn't last. My wife and dog kicked me out without a second thought.

It is thrilling in a very visceral way to be out of touch and beyond reach in this modern world of ours. The phone was turned off in my courier bag inside the top case, and completely inaccessible. I failed to make up my lack of a map by using a large scale fold off the North Carolina map to cover my wanderings through the great Smoky Mountains.I felt the exhilaration of youth as I pointed the Bonneville down the winding roads footloose and fancy free, I was privileged.

I poked my nose on gravel roads and sought out unmarked or invisible back trails. The incredible heatwave that produced temperatures well above a hundred degrees in the valley below were mitigated at these altitudes. I found myself absorbed by the experience of riding the bike, chasing the curves, and practicing riding a motorcycle in three dimensions as it should be ridden. I was a long way from the repetitive flat roads of Florida.

My first day I left home after lunch and spent the next 26 hours riding which was when I discovered my almost five year old original seat had lost it's spring. My ass hurt and continued to hurt for most of the five days. I have plans to sort that issue out.

The 16 hour ride home on tedious Interstates was tough, stopping to relieve the ache, standing on the foot pegs to relieve the ache, sliding back on the seat to...relieve...stretching my legs to...the...ache. But riding the mountain roads I forgot the ache.

Deal's Gap was enormous fun and I thoroughly enjoyed the rise and fall of the twisting tarmac for all that I was tired and hot and my backside was on fire. The Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville was open after years of repairs and it was, in my estimation the most spectacular stretch of the famous road. The curves were superb, the views tremendous and the rocky cliff faces lining the road were awesome. The Parkway was a Depression Era Government project that put Americans to work and has left a legacy that everyone loves. Even as they hate their Government. I can't imagine Halliburton or Bechtel corporations giving the American people a road like this, beautifully maintained with no advertising allowed and no commercial vehicle access. Public, open, free and for the people. Hate that Government!

Riding alone and with my thoughts I had too much time on my hands to imagine that this is the best we can do, tearing each other down to advance singularly. We all do better when we all do better. With the history of these mountains a mixture of exploitation and conservation, poverty endemic and gentrification well underway it is amazing to me that there are still huge swathes of wooded hillsides given over to nature.

My sister in law, who lives under the shadow of Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the Eastern US, looked across the hills on a morning walk and remarked that even after forty years of residence she is amazed she gets to live here full time and not on vacation. Riding these empty roads on a weekday afternoon you can see her point.

Years ago I had thought about pedaling coast-to-coast, but gave that up as a bad idea. It is embarrassing to admit I suppose, but I love internal combustion. Climate change is real as much as we may wish to ignore it. Life is paradox.

I love the versatility of my Bonneville, a roadster built in the style of an earlier era when one bike did it all. I love the modern reliability and ease of use. Modern motorcyclists criticize it for being heavy underpowered and not at all like the "super bike” that the name Bonneville represented in the 1960s. The fact that the performance has remained the same in the modern Bonneville as the T120 of old is just a reflection of the pursuit of power and speed that has dominated motorcycling these past 50 years.

Whether on gravel or on smooth pavement the modern Bonneville is entirely capable and reliable and easy to ride. Touring by motorcycle involves much more than speed and performance. Versatility means it's easy to handle at slow speeds, easy to park and manhandle, and easy on wear and tear of tires and chains and gas. I ran out of gas on the Florida Turnpike, a mile short of the service area at eleven at night. I leaned the lightly loaded bike to the left hoping to transfer a little fuel from the right side of the tank to the left. If my ruse had failed I could have pushed the 500 pound bike a mile without killing myself but as it was the engine roared back to life and I arrived at the fuel pumps in style and laughing.

From the sea level of the Florida Keys to the highest point in the mountains the Bonneville showed me I have a tool that will help me to feel less isolated during the summer months of riding.

I don't get to see wild turkey in the Keys but they were everywhere on the Parkway in the morning. I even stopped to let a brood of chicks cross the road - shades of Key West's wild chickens.

I am going back, of this I am as sure as life. I want to ride some more and make some memories for the long warm winter months when frost and ice keep me trapped in the toe of Florida's flat subtropical peninsula.

The idyllic mountain roads may be 12 hours away but that is no obstacle to a determined rider with a Bonneville and a desire to ride some real motorcycle roads.


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Celo Homecoming

I wrapped up my 2500 mile circuit of the mountains on my Bonneville by showing up for the Farm Olympics in Celo, North Carolina.

I was later advised we were supposed to be disguised as farmers. I was disguised as a rather dirty, tired motorcycle farmer while my brother in law in the orange shirt decided he needed a weird straw hat to complete his disguise while his wife was lightly disguised as an Indian housewife farmer.

It was a great afternoon for unwinding from an endless motorcycle ride and I was really glad they invited me and my Kermit chair to hang by and in the water with a hundred of their closest friends.

I did not swing on the rope but I enjoyed watching the youngsters frighten themselves half to death. We older folks laid into the grub of which there was lots and included roast pork and kegs of beer. I told you it was a great way to end a long ride.

The water was surprisingly warm in the river which may be called the North Toe River. I enjoyed splashing around in it, whatever it was called.

The pig was pretty much dismembered as the meal went on. I forgot to get a picture of it on the spit but this rendering was quite dramatic I thought:

Then things moved on to the Third Annual Farm Olympics, em'ceed by a man in a skirt, and very funny he was too.

The Olympics involved teams of five swimming the river, jumping obstacles and wriggling through mud. Great fun was had by all.

It was young people's sport and my in laws who have lived for 40 years in the Intentional Community of Celo in these mountains were heartened to see so many youngsters having fun. Geeta was pretty happy when she told me she had feared their community might become a retirement center. Retirees don't swim like this:

With the river crossing completed the racers slipped out of their coveralls and passed them to the next contestants...

...who struggled to get into the heavy wet cotton in preparation for becoming human wheelbarrows up the hill from the river.

The idea behind the Olympics was to bring neighbors together for the Fourth of July holiday period and many of those present had come home to their roots to enjoy a mountain holidays where the grew up.

They jumped obstacles, swapping the coveralls as they went, ending up in the mud hole under the tarp.

No mercy shown to anyone choosing to participate.

Some photographers were quite into the events. I was reflecting on the good fortune of the youngsters who grew up in Celo, educated on Quaker principles at the local school, raised as it were by a village in the sort of security and emotional safety net that such a world offers the children, even today.

And they may travel far afield to pursue careers but they come home from time to time and remember a carefree childhood in the woods.

Our hosts for the Farm Fest handing out awards:

And then, full of beer and pork and pasta and sponge cake I got lost in the hats on display. My sister-in-law Geeta starts the fashion show:

Mountain people love their hats.




Shade from the cancerous sun is all important to fair skinned people.




Beards and hats everywhere.

This one looked like a 19th century railroader's, and I wonder where he bought it.

These pork pie hats are fashionable and thus appear useless to me.

Child rearing is also fashionable among Asheville's youth, done in the shade of a broad straw hat, very useful and practical.

Really there were tons of young people everywhere, reproduction in action.

And farming also in action, not surprisingly as this was a farm not an Olympic Arena in real life.

The Mud Tunnel of Death reverted to being just a simple mud hole once again, as the youngsters settled down to music and fireworks as the sun set. I went home early to nurture my aching butt.

I quite like rural western North Carolina.

I wish I had grown up in Celo though rural central Italy made a not bad substitute.


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