Destination: Anadarko, OK

A couple weekends ago I took a quick ride out to Anadarko to "photo tag" this mural. I've grown rather fond of finding these things in small towns across America. This one is particularly impressive because it's so long (and it also fatures an old Indian motorcycle). Expect more murals in the weeks and months to come. If you know of a nice one somewhere, feel free to email me with a photo of your own. (It'd be nice if there's a motorcycle in the photo as well!)

Anadarko, Oklahoma ... motorcycles old and new.

I was riding the wrong bike for this photo. Not actually in Anadarko ... just on the way home.

Back at Road's End, I entrusted the Beemer to my security detail. Have I mentioned Lucky Dog has an assistant now? This is Gracie.

Texas Rose

With age comes the inevitable loss of people close to you. I suppose this is a phase of life we all must go through, part of the great journey, and as I approach the half-century mark I should prepare myself for more of it.

Earlier this year, I lost my father. I haven't written yet about the regret I feel for all the time we never had together, for all the things I should have told him. I didn't get to say goodbye, as I was diving in the Turks and Caicos. By the time I found out he was in the hospital, he was already gone. Getting home ... well, nothing moves fast in the Caribbean. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to write about the loss in any meaningful terms -- which says just how poor of a writer I am -- but I will say here that I took some of his ashes with me to Alaska. Not to scatter them (though I did briefly consider sprinkling a bit of him here and there, letting his molecules fuel good things on a broad geographic scale, and would have done so had I been so moved during the trip), but more just to take him along. It was a trip he'd have never made with me while he lived. He wasn't fond of traveling and certainly didn't share my love for motorcycles. But I wanted -- needed -- his company. Can't explain it any better than that and don't intend to. Perhaps he'll accompany me on other adventures. Time will tell.

What I wanted to write about here, however, was someone else to whom I had to recently bid farewell. Growing up, I had a second mother. Granny Kay we all called her. She was Katy Rose Smith, my best friend Dalton's mother. She died late last year. Like my father, gone before I knew she was going. This past week, I rode down to the Gulf Coast to visit my mother. On my way home, I made a point of passing through DeKalb, TX where Granny Kay is buried.

DeKalb, TX under stormy skies. The Wikipedia entry says Dan Blocker (Hoss Cartwright of Bonanza) was born there. With a population of only a couple thousand, it's a town where people still ride horses down main street in a quiet summer evening. (I was passed by several as I stopped to take this photo.)

Oak Grove Cemetery. About half the size of a football field. Just west of town.

The Cordell (her maiden name) family plot.


"Mother to Many" ... including yours truly ... no truer inscription was probably ever penned.

In care of Heaven.

The back of her headstone. These words were taken from an inscription I had written to her many years ago.

Katy Rose was one of the most caring people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. She loved everyone and everything, creatures great and small, good and bad, ugly and beautiful, with a capacity and heart seen in so few people. A simple country woman, yet eloquent and common-sense smart. There was nothing she couldn't do. No one she wouldn't stop to help. Texan and proud of it, she always saw the good in people and made people want to be better just for her approval and company.

Goodbye, Granny Kay. I love you. I miss you.

You Thought I Was Kidding About the New Stickers?

Of course I wasn't! LOL.

The GS is wearing this one proudly.


Okay, so the URL sticker might be just a bit large...


The bike got a new K&N air filter ... and, hey, it came with a sticker!


Marvin's not sure what to make of this one, but Pierre thinks it's pretty funny.


"Life is an adventure. Live it!"



Not a sticker, but the Zumo got a new mount.

Alaska: Ready to Roll

The GS is packed and ready to make its run for points north, aimed at the garage door and armed with nice new Tourances. If I were to give you a closeup of the tires, you could tell by the succulent rubber tits that they haven't even touched pavement yet. Danny and I just mounted tires (on both bikes) over Memorial Day weekend.


With that spare tire up top, it seems like quite a load, doesn't it? In truth, it's a lot less weight than your typical Harley fat chick.


I decided to forgo vanity for safety's sake and applied some reflective tape to the rear of the bike (on the panniers and the possum-scraper). Carrying that load, the reflective piping on my jacket is blocked from view to the rear, causing me to worry about getting rear-ended by ignoramuses with cell phones firmly implanted in their ears. I'll be much too far from home to be injured, stuck with a damaged bike, or D.E.A.D.


The PIAAs should take care of visibility to the front.


For those who are interested, here's a cockpit view: Zumo GPS, iPod, and cupholder all RAM-mounted in place. I'll be seeing a LOT of this in the coming days.

Won't be long now. Needless to say, I'm anxious to be underway.

Is it time to go yet?

Alaska: Two Weeks and Counting

It seems as if I've been planning for this trip forever, and now, finally, it has arrived. In two weeks, Danny and I hit the road. 23 days. 11,000 miles. To Prudhoe Bay and back (provided neither of us gets eaten by a grizzly, wrecked by a herd of wayward caribou, or crunched by some road-hogging RV). I'll be riding my BMW R1200GS. Danny will be mounted on a Suzuki V-Strom 1000 that he bought specifically for this adventure.

To make sure the truckers on the Haul Road see me, I mounted PIAAs on the Beemer. The twin 55 watt lights truly light up the night (I think I actually incinerated a couple deer on my way to work the other morning), but of course at this time of year we'll be experiencing something like 20 hours of daylight in the Great White North. I also bought a Shoei Multitec flip-face helmet -- in the no frills, match-everything color of anthracite -- even though I need another helmet like I need another hole in my head (which, ironically, the helmet is intended to protect me from). I figured over the course of 23 days on the road, I'll really appreciate being able to flip up the front of the helmet for drinking, shooting photos, hollering at Danny, etc. You might be able to see the new Shoei hanging on my mirror in the photo below.


On the other mirror, you can see our guide for this trip: Marvin. I picked up Marvin last year in Canada. He says he knows the way to Alaska.


The bike picked up a new decal.


And I thought a placard letting all the people we meet know where we're bound would be a nice touch. (Yes, I have a matching one for Danny's windscreen.)


Stay tuned. I'll be taking a laptop and doing my best to blog from the road. This is going to be an awesome adventure!

The Hardest Part of the Journey...

...always seems to be that final leg home, in this instance: the last 250 feet down my driveway. I left last Sunday for a business meeting in Tucson, AZ. Had a lovely ride out there and back -- of particular note was the magnificent ride on Arizona's Highway 191, especially in the Alpine area -- but I came home to find my driveway had become a solid sheet of ice. Yikes! The BMW R1200GS and I did some slippin' and slidin', but we remained vertical and made it to the garage safely. Whew! I almost rode straight through last night. Glad I didn't, as I would have hated to encounter that ice at midnight at the end of a thousand mile day!


Oh, and did I forget to mention that I added an R1200GS to my riding stable? Oops. I've had the GS since sometime last November, I think. One can never have too many motorcycles, right?