Follow the yellow brick road.

Success in any project needs good preparation, and despite the fact that my road trip is still four months off, there seems to be quite a lot which needs to be done to plan it properly. I have found this to be somewhat analogous to Dorothy’s journey to Oz, except for the very definite exception of dear old “Dot” herself. This time it is “Doc” and the travellers, the lion, the scarecrow and the tin man, are all in me, one and the same.. To find the tin man’s heart on the trip, I need to discover the lion’s courage and use the scarecrow’s brain. The courage is growing. The journey begins properly with the plans.
I have spent some time in the last few days working out the route to try to include the places that I have previously listed. As I start to do that, I realise that, despite the huge undertaking that this is to me, it still leaves out so many places and just serves to enforce the growing wonder at how damn big our world actually is. I have got to 60, travelled extensively in Europe, seen T.V. programmes and National Geographic, and only as I contemplate the length of this trip do I start to be awed, at what is massive but still only a fraction of what there is to see in either North America or indeed the world. Such a shame to be here for what seems to be a pretty long time and yet hardly have left the vicinity of my burrow. It also puts into perspective those lives all over the world, and even in my own village, some of whom have never travelled even as far as the end of the line on the local bus.
To begin with, last Saturday morning, in my dressing gown and slippers I sat down with my first morning coffee and a cigarette, and on opening my U.S.A road map realised that the whole of the United Kingdom would fit horizontally in the southern half of Texas. That really rather puts it into perspective. A motor cycle trip from John O’ Groats to Land’s End is about 800 miles by road, and quite frankly, the roads and the traffic for 2/3rds of the way at least, would really make me think twice before embarking on it one way, let alone there and back. The Harley Electra Glide Ultra Classic is probably the single most comfortable motorcycle to ride in the world. Described once, pretty accurately, but with a rather derogatory tone in “What Bike” magazine as “the motorcycle equivalent of a 40ft Winnebago”, .it has deep soft upholstered saddle and soft springing and, compared to most bikes, enough fitted pannier space to take a three piece suite and the kitchen sink. It is certainly no sports bike, but it’s low down torquey grunt will pull away in 4th from 30mph easily and on the German autobahns I have cruised all day at 90 without any problem. It really is fine too, despite the opinion of some petrolheads, if you are a sensible rider, on swoops and bends, as long as you don’t feel the need to “get your knee down” to prove how macho you are. So, I am happy with the machine.( Tin man’s back and knees are so creaky now that he can’t move across a saddle slickly enough now to even contemplate getting his knee down, unless he comes off, which has been known on a few occasions.) I can ride from tankful to tankful comfortably in one session, although the tin man’s knees and back squeak a bit when getting off and need a little exercise at stops. I thought a bit about the wonderful 1974 road (life)trip book by Robert M.Persig, “Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance” The author spoke constantly, metaphorically, of keeping mind and machine in proper trim for the journey of life, in short lectures to the reader which he called "chattaquas". Apart from the bits of general life Zen, I recall that at almost all of their overnight stops, he spent sometime fiddling or adjusting some part of his motorcycle, when in retrospect, he may have improved his life more by spending the time talking with his son or the people he met. I have always assumed that his was a Harley, possibly a Panhead, but can’t be sure. It may have been any one of a number of great American V-twins. Whatever, one of the remarkable things was, that he seemed to have to keep adjusting, or changing, his carburettor needles depending on the altitude at which they were riding in order to adjust for rarified air! I sincerely hope that these constant adjustments are not required on a modern fuel injection engine. (No letters to tell me that F.I. engines don’t have carburettors please…I KNOW!) I think it all works automatically on an injection engine, but I guess I had better check. I am hopeless at mechanics really. I will tackle all sorts but usually end up with lots of bits that don’t seem to have a place to fit back. I re-built my 1973 MGB roadster in 1981, and ended up with several cardboard boxes of bits, some of which I had replaced, but quite a lot of which I had no idea where they came from, let alone where they should have gone back. It still runs though, so perhaps it’s a bit like the human body, some bits are duplicated or slightly surplus to general running? It could even be better as it’s that bit lighter! ( Reminder to join an American road rescue insurance when I get there!)
So, anyway, I will return the relevance of the comfort of the Harley later, and revert to the planning.
I started to get a bit bored trying to write the route down. The scale of the map is small, so it is not that clear, and I suppose that, to do it really well, I should have large scale maps of each State to unfold and study. Straw man’s brain does not work like that however. Only a few neurones fire at any one time, and as in all my academic life, these soon started to find other things to distract.. It started by thinking about the weather and which States I could travel in just shirt and jeans, and where I was compelled to wear a helmet and where I can use just a bandana against the dust and the sun.(Always wanted to ride “Easy Rider style” but have never been able to in UK or Europe) I intend to fly into Montreal and then ride over the border into New England, where I will start. Here I learn, it may, sometimes, actually be wet in July, so I need to pack a lightweight rainsuit. Just because Doc has chosen to tour the U.S.A. on his dream trip in summer and autumn of 2007, does not mean he won’t encounter rain. Far from it. It’s quite likely to rain in Utah in the two weeks I shall be there. Currently I use either my warm Goretex jacket and overtrousers or my old Triumph green rainsuit. The former is too bulky to take with me and probably too hot, and the latter looks really naff on a blue and silver Harley! I need to look for another. So, I go to the U.S. Harley-Davidson web site to explore the accessories pages. I really hate the fact that everything Harley has to be that awful orange and black. I mean, traditional for them it may be, but those colours don’t go well with any of their bikes except the orange and black livery 883 Sportster and who really wants one of those,except perhaps someone who want to look and sound like a giant bee?! Time they took a new look at their fashion apparel. No, on second thoughts, I don’t think I’ll buy Harley, as I don’t like the colours and they charge way over the top for you to wear their labels. In this country, the few dealers that there are, simply take the U.S. price and put a “£” sign in front, in place of the dollar, so it is almost twice as expensive here. I never did like the habit of paying to advertise somebody’s clothes. It’s like buying cars. I would always take the garage label off the back window. Why would I pay them all that money and then advertise them all the time for no benefit to me? I can see why some people would want to wear a replica football shirt to identify themselves as supporters or followers of a club or player, and why some may want to sport a hat with “Disneyland” on it .These things are highlights of their lives and so important that, like a modern day apostle, they feel compelled to preach it constantly in any way they can, but such things as showing off the name of your trainers’ manufacturer, which simply serves to fuel a sad materialistic demand to be the same or better than your friends, I have no patience with. Most of the people in trainers don’t actually do any sports anyway. They simply put them on their feet without undoing them, rather like a pair of slippers, and then sweat in them causing athlete’s foot and stinky socks. Don’t get me wrong, I really have actually mellowed a bit in the last few years. I do allow myself to be a bit of a “tag-hag” with some really nice kit. I will wear Esprit or Polo or Farah or Levi’s or Louis Phillipe or North Face clothes but with the exception of the latter, all the symbols are discrete, and what’s more their stuff is really good taste and looks good, and, I have to confess, that in good Yorkshire style, I have usually picked them up from Charity shops as almost new, no doubt having belonged to people of my age who have just had to buy them but have coughed their clogs before being able to get out much to show them off! My whole point here being that, all these fashionable manufacturers make a whole variety of colours and styles with their logos on them. You don’t get them saying we only make them in orange and black! Like so many times, I do not want the “tag” I want the style and design.
So, after deciding that I don’t want a Harley rainsuit, I noticed an area I have not seen before, a route planner. Wow, now that really is good. idea.. Sadly for all of us Harley riders in the rest of the world, the mapping is only available for the U.S.A., although, I know the system, MapQuest, is available for much of Europe certainly. That reminds me of one of the impressions I currently have about the U.S. as a whole, that they really have no concern for anybody outside themselves, even England (England). I hope that, as I meet the people themselves, this is an impression that will be removed, but I rather hold my breath on that one, because the parochialism of the Counties and the States seems to isolate them from everything else.
For the next six hours, I worked on the Harley Route planner and the Rough Guide to the U.S.A., plotting the start and end of the routes and then filling in the stops and adding route alterations. Boy, did I stiffen up, sat at the kitchen table for that long, but finally I completed it and upload ten continuous one way routes to my document file. Having checked them and noted the distances and riding times for each I added it all up. 18,274miles and 342 hours of ride time! That is twice the crow fly distance I had estimated and at 3 hours riding a day will give me just four days off! My heart sank. What I want is a dream trip, not an endurance ride with back ache and haemorrhoids! I printed off the hundred odd double sheets of the route and an hour or two later sat and looked at them rather sadly as I saw that the trip was really much more than I felt I could manage. At 3.00o’clock I decide to get washed and dressed to feel better! On returning to the table with disappointment in my heart ,I was just about to start pruning it all down, when I noticed in Texas that I had inadvertently clicked the computer entry several times and was about to do a 2,400 mile trip there which involved several circuits of San Antonio, Flagstaff and Dallas.. Yes, there on the outline map was a circle not just a line. I checked the others and found that several were similar. I had had a few problems, sometimes, in concentration and where exactly on the route I had placed a few stops. In the wrong place it takes you in a circle or up and down the same road. So, with some new enthusiasm, an hour or so later, I had revised them all and checked all the stop positions. The route had shrunk to a truly manageable 13,909 miles with 262 hours riding, in 3 hour lots. That is a total of 90 days on which I shall have to make road progress and 26 full days off. At least 2,000 miles of this are actually seeing the regions I want to see, so are in fact sight seeing trips or riding experiences which I want to do, so now all is very pleasing again, Straw man is vindicated, Lion has gained some more courage and Tin Man’s heart is beating gently once more. As I transferred the route to the Road Map with a marker pen a long continuous pink line satisfactorily appeared, now truly highlighting the points of interest I want to see on the way. (Perhaps it should have been a yellow brick road marker but it would not have showed up on the map)
Last night, sat in my camper van on the Garrison where I am doing a locum at the moment, I took out Plan 1, New England, and my Rough Guide to add notes on the places I am due to pass by and want to visit. I expect the highlights of this part of the trip to be Boston and Harvard, maybe Cape Cod if I can ferry the bike over, and then to see the houses of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe in Hartford before turning north west to the end of Plan 1 at Niagara Falls. I have planned a lot of smaller roads through country and hills and it should be a nice trip of some 940miles. There seemed nothing very remarkable to impede my progress or cause me to stop on the way down from Montreal to Boston, and yet……
Bollocks! I noticed that en route, there is a town called Waterbury, that’s Waterbury (Vermont) where, in the sixties, two hippies set up camp and started to make ice cream for roadside travellers. This place is now “the number one tourist destination in Vermont”. The two hippies still make ice cream there, and outside the town has grown enormously into a large industrial complex of creaming, churning and freezing. Now I don’t much like going to number one tourist destinations, although I recognise that most of my trip will be going to them! I am sorry, and here, I have to confess, I don’t actually feel at all guilty. This is the home of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, purportedly now the biggest and best ice cream manufacturer in the world ( it would be wouldn’t it!) I just might have to stop off for petrol about then and will need a stroll about to ease my back and knees. And if I just happen to have a quart of ice cream when I’m there and watch it being produced, well, so what. But don’t expect me to be seen wearing a basketball cap with B and J on it!

Best wishes, Doc