Adaptive Curmudgeon

We planned to go to Winnipeg but we looked at tourist stuff on-line. I don’t know who does the Winnipeg chamber of commerce or whatever but they made the place sound extremely boring; like “if I have to watch another YouTube video of the same three lame attractions I’ll set my computer on fire” boring. Maybe the place is awesome. I’ll never know.

I had high hopes for Kenora which was “just across from Manitoba”. That phrase is crazy stupid. Ever been to Texas? When someone in Texas says “it’s a little across the state” you know you’re in for a fucking marathon. Same with Kenora Ontario. We drove 292,273,376,200,028,521 miles… then another 100 kilometers because why the fuck not; all to get to Kenora.

I’d never been to Kenora. You know what’s on the outskirts of Kenora? Nothin’. There’s spruce, dirt, rocks, lakes, etc… but as far as human activity, it’s the year 1730 out there. This was the part of the trip I expected to be “suburban”! Whoops!

Kenora, has about 15,000 people but they’re doing their best to create all the bullshit of Manhattan by squeezing a commercial district into something like six city blocks. I was a country mouse, addled by the city traffic, in mere six blocks. Car horns honked and I was out of my league. We stopped at a hipster lookin’ microbrew and had to pay for parking. (I’m a rural cuss, I forgot that paid parking existed!) The parking kiosk had more technology than my home county. It happily billed my American debit card.

The tiny mini-Manhattan was awash in colors and activity. As with all such places I wondered where all the rich people come from. Or rather, all the people that look rich and demonstrate weird social habits to signal their elite status. On the one hand I get it but on the other hand they’re in… Kenora. The middle of nowhere where the main social activity is catching pike. How does a trendy elite happen… there?

Trying to embrace “urban living” I drank a stupidly over-hoppy IPA (hipsters and IPAs go together like saltwater and rust). I finally got that plate of poutine I’d been craving! The dog sat with us in the outside dining area of a fancy microbrewery and basked in the activity like a rock star. Everyone loved the fluffy dog. They inched around the grumpy owner until Mrs. Curmudgeon said “you can pet the dog, she doesn’t bite”. She never said “my husband doesn’t bite”. I suppose it was implied. But if any of them had reached for my poutine, I’d have taken a finger off!

Ever go on a trip and think the dog is more in the moment than you?

We spent the night at a hotel. Ever since the Bidenverse, prices have sent me into conniptions. I start sounding like Red Foxx from Sanford and Sons.

We’ve worked out a plan for when Mrs. Curmudgeon and I travel. She rents the hotel room and I avoid asking the price. “If I can’t read them, the numbers can’t hurt me.” It’s a joke in our household, and deeply embedded fiscal policy in both nations from this trip.

When I travel alone it’s a whole different ball game. I go to my natural fiscal level, which is slightly above sleeping on a park bench but hyperventilates at the cost of a Best Western. Ideally this means “free dispersed camping”. If I can’t swing that (and it’s hard if you don’t know the area) I’ll spring $25-$35 for a State Park and bitch about it for weeks.

That’s a long way of saying Kenora wasn’t cheap. Every fucking thing is expensive in America (especially given our inflation) and everything in Canada is worse. (Yes, I know about exchange rates.) The point is, if you live long enough in rural nowhere you lose that sense of money flowing away like vapor. I’m not used to it. Every microbrewed beer was priced like I was in the height of tourist season in Paris. Which is weird, because Kenora is really not that big at all.

I wanted to buy a tourist t-shirt. I approached a store. Through the window I spotted six man buns, a being with purple hair, and a woman who desperately needed a sandwich. She looked eager to tell me about yoga and crystal healing. I noped out of there and split.

Enough dumping on sweet innocent Kenora. We drive on in the next part.

For a recent mini-vacation Mrs. Curmudgeon surprised me with the idea “lets go to that ‘end of the road’ place you’ve been yammering about”. Whoa! Married all those years and she still surprises me!

There’s a hitch. Many moons ago she announced she no longer sleeps on dirt and also that she doesn’t ride on the back of my motorcycles. So my plans of rugged manly camping would be interpreted as “getting eaten by mosquitoes in the land of moose like an idiot”. I had to recalibrate.

Yet there she was, offering to go on one of my wild goose chases. She’s a keeper!

I dialed back a bit and we picked the tamest of options. Then, because time happens when I’m not paying attention, we were on the road before I realized what we were doing.

How shall I describe the places we went? Despite being a blogger I’ll keep specifics to myself. Partly in the interest of privacy and partly to protect my favorite spots. Every fisherman has the places they won’t tell anyone about.

How to tell a story that is fact free? It’s a challenge. I looked about for inspiration and saw it on TV. I’ll follow the example I saw there. Just keep in mind, I actually did the stuff. Unlike the dweebs on the boob tube who generally haven’t done fuck all and make up lies about it; I did the stuff. I may be obfuscating irrelevant details but I have legitimate and morally acceptable reasons for doing so.

After I was done kicking Corn Pop’s ass I drove my Corvette through my three home states and then on to the border with Manitoba…

…I was in my car, which is a very good car… the best of cars really. I and I thought, why shouldn’t I go to McDonalds, in Winnipeg. Why not? Winnepeg is a great place. Very great. Some say the greatest. They said they had ‘poutine’, which I think is metric French fries, but I don’t eat metric things. I said “no, as an American I want a diet coke and a cheeseburger”. And they made a cheeseburger but it was a bad cheeseburger. Disappointing cheeseburger. Sad really….

Ha ha ha… I can’t keep it up… I was going to do the whole story in Biden-ism and Trump-xaggeration but I laughed too much and couldn’t concentrate.

Lets face it, if either of the two main candidates tried to venture, on their own, to my favorite canoe access points on the Laurentian Shield… they’d both fuck up. One would die instantly and the other would bring a convoy of twenty assistants. We probably haven’t had a president capable of doing shit on his own since Teddy Roosevelt.

That’s part of the disappointment with the Boomeroids we face today, they’re reality impaired. They can’t operate independently in nature.

One needs supervision just to get through the day. He’d get confused and wander into the swamp where he’d sink. The press would claim sinking in swamps is a good thing and TicTok would post videos of famous actors sinking in swamps. “Sinking in swamps is the new hotness, look how all the stars are trying it!”

The other would give speeches to the spruce trees while the press bayed for his blood. The spruce trees would vote for him because the guy so damn good at speeches that he could talk conifers into motion. This would cause the press to set fire to every spruce in sight. “Trees are literally Hitler. The best way to protect the forest is to burn them to death. It’s the right thing to do.”

I’ll try again.

So there I was, avoiding thinking about politics at a picnic table adjacent to the US/Canadian border. Mrs. Curmudgeon had shit to do. I was on my own, just walking the dog and killing time. I had brought my “chuckbox” (which was taking far too much of the car’s cargo area but I’m paranoid about food). I grabbed a book, setup a lawn chair, and started brewing coffee. The skies were cloudy but it wasn’t raining.

There was a historic monument. I read it:

“A long time ago members of Tribe X and Political Group Y were here… hauling beaver pelts or some shit. Tribe A, affiliated with Political Group B showed up and killed everything. It happened here… we think, but we’re not sure… because everyone died. The assholes even peed on the pelts. (I made up that part.) This stone is to remember this shitty thing that happened for stupid reasons in this location or maybe somewhere else.”

I can shorten that a bit:

“People suck!”

I sat with my coffee reading “Curse of Capistrano” and it was pretty chill. Every few minutes cars would come in, sit there, and then leave. I had no idea what the hell they were doing. My phone doesn’t work in Canada. Maybe Americans were making a last call before facing disconnect?

Then I caught a whiff like Cheech and Chong had rolled Snoop Dog in a joint and smoked his ass. Whoa!

I’m not sure but I think pot is legal south of the border. Presumably it’s that modern “legal in the state but still mega-illegal in the nation” half-legality gray area that is now modern American life. As for our friends up north, I think it’s legal there too. (Which ruins the plot of Trailer Park Boys.)

Anyway, I think the 50 year old war on (some) drugs is vaguely and messily over on both sides of the border but carrying something across the line turns the clock back to 1980. I suppose the dudes from Miami Vice show up in fancy shirts to beat a confession out of you?

My drugs of choice are coffee, bourbon, and nature. I’ve no idea how it really goes with pot.

However, it’s my working theory that people were pulling up to the little picnic ground and doing a last minute “smoke everything in the car before we cross” safety check. I hope the vehicles had designated drivers!

I’m endlessly amused by the idea of people crossing the border while “legally” high as a kite (aside from the driver of course). In a different lifetime, I myself drove a station wagon full of underage drunks from Canada (where the drinking age was X) to America (where the drinking age was Y). I was stone cold sober of course! So maybe the pot thing is just the cycle of life?

I don’t like our strange new universe in which so many things are simultaneously legal and not. Perhaps that weirdness is nothing new and the past few centuries (?) of law as written is the anomaly:

“Is this thing I want to do legal?”

“It’s the year 1380 and the king is your distant cousin, so sure. Go for it.”

“What about this other thing?”

“The king is chill but the bishop hates that shit. He’ll secretly arrange to have your house burned down.” 

“How do I know what’s allowed?”

“You don’t!”

Is that not the end point of “lawfare”?

As for the rest of border weirdness, the whole “if they look like they’ve got Covid put ‘em up against the wall like they’re peasants in Stalin’s Russia” madness seems to have faded. Though it served a purpose on both sides of the line. It’ll surely return again. Don’t forget what happened. Remember!

When Mrs. Curmudgeon showed up we crossed with absolutely no drama. Our dog was disappointed to pull up to a “drive through” and not get a dog treat. The border was less interesting than getting drinks from Starbucks and it took about that long. This is how it used to be and I’m glad it returned… for now.

Part 3 comes next…

I’ve been pondering videos and books by Nick Adams (the writer, not the Hemingway character). He wanders around northeastern Canada on old bikes. It sounds like he’s having a ball. I want some of that!

I’m no stranger to Canadian adventures, I used to run off on week-long canoe trips up there. Unfortunately, I’m no longer up to paddling weeks at a time. My planned replacement (a tiny but tough homebuilt sailboat) has been a source of humility. (Don’t get me wrong, it has also been an absolute blast. I love the thing. If at all possible everyone should build and sail their own boat. But it’s not a plug and play replacement for a canoe.)

What I mean by humility is that waterborne camping (such as by canoe OR sailboat) is one skill, building a boat is another, and sailing is a third. I’m not studly enough to manage all three at once… yet. Add a fishing pole and I’m a one man clown car of tangled lines. I can paddle with pinpoint precision, but under sail there’s just too much chaos. No worries. I love my little boat and I it’s trying its very best to teach me sailing. I may someday level up and sail past lakebound horizons.

An important note about “lakebound horizons”: you might be thinking of a lake as a discrete manageable chunk of water but that’s not the case in the eastern half (!) of Canada. You might be swayed by postcards and pretty views. You might even picture a lake or three linked by a navigable river. Probably you imagine lakeshore homes, resorts, and marinas. But there’s a whole different dimension of “lake” you probably haven’t seen.

The Laurentian Shield is a vast geographic feature covering most of Manitoba, Quebec, and Ontario. If you’ve got a real hankering for adventure you can add half of the Northwest Territory, Nunavit (reached mostly by air), and Labrador. This is some of the oldest rock on earth. It was curbstomped during the last ice age resulting in a water/land mix I’ve not seen elsewhere.

God’s Belt Sander of Doom made “the shield” unique and vast. Sometimes there’s so much open and easily traversed water that the land starts looking like an archipelago. Other times it’s soaked into peat bogs that will sink anything heavier than a rabbit. Technically the whole area is land but that’s not true at all. Unless you’re a moose you ‘aint crossing many areas on foot and even less so by wheeled vehicle. The funky terrain allowed my canoe equipped self to do some cool things. You can inch, lake to lake, poking past swamps and bogs, across the Laurentian Shield as far as your muscle and courage go. It’s amazing! I’ve done it and it was awesome! Oh yeah, did I mention this is all sparsely populated (if populated at all). You’re on your own out there! Knowing the scale of the challenge, I don’t feel too lame that I’m not yet “conquering” it with my 8’ plywood boat.

Back in the realm of what’s more immediately possible; there’s a thin, sparse, gossamer, network of roads in (some) of the Laurentian Shield. Roads start out “normal density” south along the border and gradually fade out as you go north; eventually ice roads and floatplanes rule. I have a motorcycle and wanderlust. I’ve been spreading out big maps of Canada and staring at those thin lines. There’s a whole lotta’ nothing out there and I love nothin’. I don’t care if it’s a blistering desert, a murky swamp, a frozen lake, an empty prairie, a stony mountain… all I want to do is go where the people aren’t. The Laurentian Shield is just sitting there… with all the nothin’ I could ever want! ROAD TRIP!

Pondering places so remote and vast that it’s hard to describe, I break down infinity into three “road classes”.

First comes “the end of pavement”. That’s my bucket list destination #1. It should be easy!

For the most part you can’t get to the Arctic Ocean on wheels. Thus, there are many “ends of pavement” up there in the infinity. None of the paved roads need particularly exquisite equipment. Any reliable vehicle will do (at least in the summer). Where there’s pavement there is at least the possibility you’ll find a bar that sells hamburgers, infrequent but adequate gas stations, and (with some planning) crappy overpriced hotels. I have my sights set on riding my “new” Honda Pacific Coast 800, happily named “Marshmallow Fluff” to the end of pavement; ideally while camping to save on lodging expense.

Next comes “the end of the road”. That’s the end of the dirt road that usually comes many miles after the end of pavement. That’s bucket list destination #2. It’s not incredibly hard but it’s not to be done without thinking it over.

Sometimes there might be “town” up there, but often not. You’re almost certainly going to need to bring a tent or plan ahead to be back on pavement by sunset because hotels are scant. Surprisingly, this isn’t super off road terrain. 4X4 is handy but (in summer) most of the main dirt roads are sorta’ OK. They’re used for heavy hauling; log trucks and such. If a Kenworth can run 50,000 pounds of pulp on the road, your Toyota will probably be fine. Nick Adams, who has more experience than most and more balls than many, wanders these places with ridiculously obsolete motorcycles. Well played sir!

But there’s a caveat; remoteness has a risk all it’s own. I’m not trying to exaggerate but in our modern world of cell phones and streetlights most people have literally never seen remote like this. Once you go beyond pavement, you’re officially “working without a net”.

Services range from nonexistent to rare. Don’t even ask about cellular reception. And even if you could call someone with a SatPhone, are you going to wait a week for help to come? In that case, imagine the level of favor you’ve just requested! “Yo dude, come drive for days and a million miles to the ass end of nowhere because I blew out a tie rod end.”

Whatever you drive into those places has to come out under it’s own power!

Think about your daily driver; it’s flawless until it croaks but then what? Your average SUV can do most of those roads but how “fixable” is it? Anyone can swap a spare tire, but do you have two? Suppose you turn the key and hear nothing but “click”? Anyone with a lick of sense has a jump start pack but what if the issue is some mysterious firmware disaster you can’t fix with your tools and knowledge? Think of any modern fuel injected, technology laden, computer on wheels having a small “kerfuffle”… but picture the location of the breakdown as being on the moon.

Nobody is going to tow your ass home from “bucket list destination #2”. It’s worth thinking about. Nick Adams rode his PC800 in these realms but I’m far too chickenshit to do that on mine.

It’s standard advice to say “don’t go up there solo”. It certainly would be convenient to have a couple vehicles in convoy. But, of course, people go there solo. They live there for goodness sake. I intend to be solo when/if the time comes.

My vehicular options are a mixed bag. My truck is tough and adequate but it’s big. Maybe too big. It doesn’t have a winch. A shovel and a rope can retrieve a light Jeep out of a place that would become my heavy Dually’s grave. Also the Dodge is technology heavy. It has been reliable (for some definition of reliable), but if it decides to throw a fit in the hinterland I’m doomed. I might as well make a cabin and live there because I’ll never get it home.

I have a better “adventure” 4×4. It’s built for doing stupid things and I used it for that purpose in a different life. But it’s old and I’m still working on some “restomod” details.

My Yamaha TW200, Honey Badger, would gladly drive dirt all day. It’s tough and gloriously primitive. I can fix whatever breaks with a rock or a zip tie. And it’s cheap. Even if it winds up abandoned… it’s not like I sunk a $30k diesel in a swamp. The drawback is that I’d have to tow it at least to the end of pavement and the little bike would beat me senseless on a long ride; it’s not a smooth riding tour bike.

End result? I’m stayin’ off dirt for now.

Bucket list #3 is where shit gets real. Often, the dirt road ends at a lake. In the summer the lake’s a lake. In the winter, the lake becomes a road. I’m not even considering ice roads for the moment. Every now and then I think of snowmobiles and daydream; but that’s a special level of stupid I haven’t embraced yet.

If there is a point to all this, I’ll get to it in my next post.

This weekend, space weather was fortuitous for aurora borealis. I seized that opportunity.

I waited a few hours after sunset and turned off my pole light. (Most rural farms have a pole light, it’s almost a necessity. What’s interesting is that most pole lights are hardwired to photo-sensors without an “off switch”. I paid to have a switch installed. I don’t use it often but when I do it’s worth its weight in gold.)

With the light off, it was pitch black. The sky had only a tiny sliver of moon. Indeed the northern lights were happening. It wasn’t the biggest baddest display I’ve seen. The colors were washed out. But who am I to complain? All northern lights are delightful.

I have a theory that either God or nature (I sense overlap in the two) wants to help you. I’d had a hard week and needed to recharge. In retrospect, the best thing I could possibly do was park my ass in a dark yard on one of the first warm nights of the year and stare at the Universe. How convenient I was coaxed into that very situation!

I had the dog on a leash. Alas, our dog is more bonded with Mrs. Curmudgeon than me. The dog was baffled. It kept looking at me quizzically as if to say: “Why the hell are we sitting here in the dark? Have you finally cracked?”

I sat in my lawnchair sipping beer and letting stress ebb. Our barn cat showed up. First it knocked over my beer, because it’s a cat. I grabbed my auxiliary backup beer and shrugged. Then the damn beast hopped in my lap and clawed my balls, because it’s a cat. After that it settled down. My confused dog sniffed at the spilled beer. The dog definitely wondered what would cause an otherwise normal human to sit perfectly still and silent in the dark night like a brooding ape. I pet the dog to reassure it but didn’t try to explain.

It was a dark night with not a breath of wind. Too early for mosquitoes. I didn’t even see bats. The sky was pleasant. I watched the colors fade in and out and my mind left behind all those worries about plumbing and whatnot.

There’s a lot of “nature” in my immediate surroundings. I drink deeply of that well. It does me wonders. Few people will sit in the dark. Fewer still will sit by themselves. We are trained to be fearful children; grasping herd beings huddled in the safety of crowds. Folks are almost repelled when I tell them I camp, or hike, or fish, or hunt all by myself. It takes a certain kind of humility to turn away from the cell phone’s brightly lit debasement and embrace the true nature of the world.

Is it worth it? I think so. But I guess that’s up to each of us. If you open your mind to experience things but you might like what you learn. Or you might not. Regardless, you won’t know unless you try and almost nobody tries. If you’re fortunate enough to know a place free of traffic noise and urban light pollution give it a shot.

On this particular night, with the air so still and the skies flickering with a perturbed magnetosphere, the world felt timeless. There was the sense that anyone who sat perfectly still long enough would witness the Universe’s secrets. Such a being would have knowledge of the sort most folks don’t even know they lack. I suppose, a feature of having such knowledge is the inability to communicate it with less ethereal brethren.

Animals were moving about, but not the common ones such as deer. Deer stay put during the darkest of moonless nights. I heard a ruffed grouse beating a log somewhere. Owls were hooting, as if to warn the grouse they were hunting and all’s fair in the world of nature. Bears are not unheard of in my yard, but I haven’t seen one lately.

I fancied if I waited long enough I’d move through time. Would I see a mastodon? How about a glacier? Neither would seem out of place in my yard. In some ways a mastodon makes more sense for my yard than my damn maintenance prone Dodge. The ice age is distant and yet it is not. One could argue we’re removed from it by either an unfathomable span of time or just the ebbing of a few short moments. It depends on how well you know things. It was yesterday to a geologist and never happened to the unobservant. How hard do we really look at the world around us?

I caught the faint whiff of a skunk. I’d been sitting perfectly still and silent for a good long time. Can’t blame a skunk for not sussing out that I was there. I let my presence be known. “Damn fine night for blasting a skunk to bits.” I said it in a perfectly conversational tone. From whatever vector Mr. Skunk had been approaching, he vamoosed the way he came.

Just about then Mrs. Curmudgeon poked her head out of the door to see how the northern lights were. She sniffed the air, identified the scent, and retreated into the house like we had a velociraptor prowling in the darkness.

I stayed on post. The northern lights faded in and out. I tried taking photos with my cell phone, all of which looked like shit. The skies weren’t 100% clear so I saw fewer stars than under ideal conditions. I started counting satellites and lost count around 13. In the middle of this I saw a righteous shooting star. Nice!

In the distance, far far away, I heard some howling. I hear coyotes all the time but wolves only rarely. This time it was wolves. The difference isn’t subtle. They were far away but I don’t know how far. The sound of a wolf howl travels some unknowable distance. I wondered what that distance might be; a few miles, a dozen?

My dog is a breed meant for killing wolves. It’s a healthy young beast of a size to make good on its heritage. On the other hand it’s a loveable creampuff. It roused from its slumber, listened carefully to the howling, and then looked at me with definite purpose in its eyes. “Alright, this has gone far enough, haul your civilized ape butt out of that chair, take me inside, and give me a dog treat.”

Of the two of us, the apex predator is the bearded old dude and not the hulking young dog. Go figure. But maybe the dog had a point. I’d been out there for hours. Might as well turn in; to my dog’s immense relief.

By then the northern lights had faded. The cat, which had been snoozing and purring while I sat, clawed the shit out of me as I stood up… because cat. I lumbered a mere fifty yards yet through dimensions of experience to rest on a bed, in a house, surrounded by walls and electronics and payments, and a very relieved dog. I fell asleep quickly. I dreamed of it all; mammoths and wolves. Everything was illuminated by northern lights which are always beautiful; both in skies teeming with satellites and emptier ones. The latter glittering above silent glaciers.

I didn’t want to end on a downer, so here are a few photos:

It’s right there on the cover, three score and ten. But it’s not meant to be resignation. There’s a line though that limit and Adams won’t let himself be defined by such things. It’s a happy little book which I recommend.

After cleaning out the motorcycle’s bedonkadonk and stashing the manual and some tools, I grabbed the last thing I planned to carry. Nick Adams’ “Adventures on Borrowed Time”. It’s the second Nick Adams book I’ve bought. I was initially using his literature to test my “books on dead tree are better than e-books” theory but now it feeds my dream of a fun road trip. His books are simple, just road trips in Canada. Specifically, solo, remote, motorcycle rides… that’s precisely what I want to do! I’ll take encouragement whenever I find it.

I’ve spent many years wanting to “drive to the end of the road”, which is an unspecified but physical location you can find in literal existence in Ontario. The dream was derailed by other things, raising children, normal life, etc… It’s not like I’m filled with regret. I didn’t sit on my ass doing nothing! It’s just that the “end of the road” plan got pushed back multiple times. Most recently Canada’s shitstorm over Covid was (remarkably!) even worse than America’s spastic flailing. (Isn’t it weird that some places sucked even more than the land of arresting lone surfers and little arrows on the floor at the grocery store? I wouldn’t have thought anyone could get dumber than America but I was wrong. Canada went full gestapo, Australia built actual concentration camps, and New Zealand became an island prison. The Professor struggles in a society of Gilligan.) Even after things returned to normal (actually they never returned to normal and they never will) came the soaring cost of fuel. The Bidenverse tripled the cost of fuel and, even though that bothers me less than the political prisoners, it partially grounded my Dodge. And then came a personal loss.

But that’s the past and I’m thinking of the future. By now I was suited up and the PC800 was warmed up. This was only a springtime shakeout ride, nothing more than a sunny afternoon and a little over a hundred miles. The odds were in my favor.

I was thinking about Nick Adams’ introduction in his book. He talks about the biblical time allotted to us all (if we’re lucky); three score and ten. That’s the source of his title. His life can be considered to be on borrowed time; having lived beyond 70.

He implores his reader; “do it now, don’t put it off”. I can almost hear him crying out to his keyboard; “Don’t let your doubts scare you away from living while you’re still alive!” I agree.

As I wheeled the bike out of the crowded garage I noticed the plastic bag of mouse detritus. I’d tossed it on the ATV (itself a vehicle currently ignored). On a whim, I put down the kickstand. I’d tie up the bag and toss it in the Dodge’s cargo bed. Might as well facilitate the first step toward the landfill right?

As I tied the bag I saw it. A little piece of paper, thoroughly mouse chewed, a relic from just about a year ago. Hand scrawled notes; just words really. One word stood out; “biopsy”. I’d stashed that paper in the saddlebags sometime early last summer. Less than a year has passed since I wrote that note, yet it has been a very very very long time indeed. Even back then I knew a process had already begun. It was too long and too short and it invariably ended as it will for us all.

I found myself crumpled up on the ATV. I try to avoid mentioning sad things on my blog but I won’t ignore the truth of life. My burdens aren’t particularly heavy in the overall scheme of things. I handle them neither better nor worse than anyone else. For now, and perhaps for a long while to come, sometimes I wind up crumpled against a dusty ATV while my motorcycle cheerfully idles on its kickstand.

Three score and ten.

Eventually I took a deep breath and continued living.

I grieve, sometimes in the slow bittersweet growth of human existence and sometimes viciously; as when an unexpected gut punch hits comes out of nowhere. But, that too is ok. It’s part of living. I might as well, as Nick Adams so pleasantly suggests, ride.

And so I did.

The future is far off, but it looms. I bought my PC800 with a plan. The plan was delayed but not defeated. I inch forward. Vague plans become more solid. What is fleeting and ephemeral moves forward, seemingly molecule by molecule, but it moves nonetheless.

I have hope.

I was carrying a box. The box had things that go with hope. I will store them in the PC800’s voluminous bedonkadonk. They are for the plan. I have a map. Many good dreams start with maps. I have an attachment that goes on the battery to allow me to jump start with the battery pack, directly through a charging wire. Thus, I should be able to jump start without pulling off panels to access an inconvenient battery. (I haven’t installed it yet.)

Then I have the pièce de résistance! A freshly printed and bound shop manual! I paid $70 getting that bad boy printed. I even bought a water resistant envelope to carry it. I now have the entirety of Honda derived instructional materials. Back in the 1980’s this manual went to dealers along with Honda’s new, carefully designed yet soon to be market failure, Pacific Coast.

The PC800 is an odd duck and it’s old. It has a Rubik’s Cube of cladding that was meant to be a killer marketing win. It scared bike guys away in droves. From what I can tell it fits together in ingenious ways as only Honda engineers could manage and (with a modicum of care) it pops open for most reasonable service. However, it’s not an easy “look at it and deduce what to remove in what order” situation. I have seen at least one such bike where a ignorant monster used a hacksaw (A HACKSAW!) to access the battery. Good grief, anyone with the slightest common sense would fucking know that the bike must have some way to remove and replace the battery and a hacksaw ain’t it. But people are stupid.

What kind of heathen sees this location and decides the best access method is a fucking hacksaw?

(Ironically, test driving that abused mangled bike sold me on the model as a concept. It ran like a top despite being beaten by apes, cut with saws, stored in a snowdrift, and otherwise subject to indignities that are mechanical war crimes. If a bike could run well after that… it was a good design! I didn’t buy that mess but was more confident when I bought a much prettier one that had been owned by a person who knew to patiently pull panels in proper order to mess with the battery.)

Anyway, people are apes and even many mechanics aren’t overly clever. Dealers in my area (which are few, expensive, and largely incompetent) won’t touch a bike like mine. Would they fuck it up? Who knows? Do they think they might? Yes. Thus maintenance falls to me.

I’m pretty sure I can handle routine maintenance; oil changes and such. Plus I’ve got hope that the well built little spud won’t need much. But there’s a whole different wrinkle. I have plans that involve very remote roads. Also, I ride alone. Shit could go south in a flash. This is the “working without a net” world where you don’t have cell phone service to call the tow truck that doesn’t exist. You have to get out on your own initiative. I have to be prepared. Which is why I printed the entire damn manual.

This is a real world test of “The Professor Theory”. Remember Gilligan’s Island? It’s an old TV show from just as black and white morphed into color TV. It’s so old that “the Professor” was assumed to be intelligent. I laugh just thinking of it. In the modern world I associate “professor” with words like “indoctrinated” and “irrational” and “intolerant”. (Forget what woke university swine say about “tolerance” and “diversity”, there’s never been a more lockstep, intolerant, uniform, population of useless looters on earth than the “professors” of modern time.)

Back to Gilligan’s Island. In the show, the Professor built radios out of coconuts, concocted plans to get the hapless castaways off the island, and generally acted as a voice of reason.

Gilligan, I’m three standard deviations smarter than anyone on the island and possibly eleven deviations smarter than you and your platonic male partner combined. Now get away from my coffee maker.

Also, it’s common knowledge that the only correct answer to the question “Ginger or Mary Anne?” is Mary Anne.

Of the castaways, guess who the Professor hung around most.

Even as a kid, it seemed clear to me that the Professor could, at any time, figure out how to build a craft, and with a bit of pluck, sail his ass home. It’s not that he was a boatwright and a sailor but that he wasn’t a dumbass and given enough time and motivation he’d figure it out. Alas, he was surrounded by idiots. Everyone else on the island, especially the weapons grade nitwit Gilligan, fucked up the Professor’s plans. Like clockwork, at the conclusion of every 25 minute episode, the Professor’s earnest attempt was thwarted as Gilligan covered everything in goo, or set it on fire, or ate it for dinner. The people around him dragged the Professor’s ass back into the crab bucket.

What’s this have to do with a service manual? Everything!

I plan on riding alone to places nobody goes. If something goes wrong there wont be a tow truck for me. And I’m absolutely not a good mechanic. I’ll have my inexperienced and untrained self, a handful of tools, and all the time in the world. And the book of instructions! If shit goes wrong, will I get off the island? Will I manage to read the manual, figure out the situation, fix what needs fixing, and get home? I guess I’ll find out.

While the PC800 idled in Honda-esque perfection, I popped the bedonkadonk to store these treasures.

Oh no! Fucking mice had moved in! I had anti-mouse satchels in there and it did no good. The rodent demons built an insulation nest right on top of it. They ate my goddamn gloves!

Panicked that they damaged more than gloves, I cleaned the mess. Luckily, that was the extent of the damage, no chewed wires or whatnot. I stowed the manual and maps and a tire patch kit and other parts of the dream and breathed a sigh of relief.

More in part 4 where I discuss the literary crack that’s the air under today’s wings.

After two weeks of intermittent rain (and plumbing issues enough to make me daydream about finally building that outhouse I’ve been meaning to build) there was a break in the clouds. A short glorious reprieve. I took a shower, fearfully watching the drain lest my recently resolved plumbing situation return to it’s former status as “I thought I fixed it but I didn’t”, and then I faced one of the rolls of the dice that northern people know all too well.

I walked out to the garage, key in hard, to find out if my least trusted motorcycle would start after a long winter’s freeze. I’d “put her to bed” ever so gently. I’d left StaBil infused gas in the tank. The battery was hooked to the umbilical of a maintainer. My garage is not heated, but it’s better than the brutal outdoors. I practically read it a bedtime story!

Folks without skin in the game might be forgiven for missing the import of the “first start of spring”. Of course it’ll start, it’s a mechanical thing bound by mechanical rules. Ha! Crom laughs at your naive faith!

Trust is earned, not demanded. It comes from long association and demonstrated performance. When a thing has done as expected, functioned as needed, done as instructed, been reliable when reliability is needed, then and only then can you trust it. Beyond that, it’s all bullshit.

But enough about politics.

I was too chickenshit to tinker with the plastic clad cream puff that’s my newest addition to the garage. I bought a 35 year old Honda Pacific Coast 800 just shy of a year ago. I believe it has the chops, but I don’t know that in my bones. I waited until it was a little warmer, lest the unobtanium cladding suffer damage in my Neanderthal hands.

The motorcycle I trust most is my ‘99 Honda Shadow. We (it and I) have crossed deserts and mountains. We’ve done city commutes and lonesome prairie expanses. It has never let me down. I trust it. So, as spring oozed into existence (with far too many fits and starts) I began by firing up the trusty Shadow. It started well and ran flawlessly; as it has since I bought it.

The Shadow is tough as nails but Honey Badger (my Yamaha TW200) has impressed me too. In the short time I’ve owned it I’ve decided the beast is unkillable. We (it and I) have bounced off trees, sunk in ponds, and crashed into ruts. I’ve overloaded it, overworked it, and over estimated my riding ability on dirt. I’ve flogged it mercilessly and it just doesn’t give a shit. It seems to thrive on abuse. It runs less like a machine and more like an immortal plodding mule that fears nothing and can occasionally charge like a rhino. I’ve happily zoomed around places through which I can barely walk. Honey Badger never falters. If I can keep it upright, the single cylinder brick shithouse will fling me through, over, around, and/or directly into anything at which it’s pointed. If anything on that man / machine pair breaks it will be me… the stupidly tough little motorcycle will probably outlast me. It’ll just sit there slammed into a tree or lying at the bottom of a cliff with a moldering skeleton on the seat. Eventually someone will brush it off, hit the starter, and it’ll leave my remains in the ditch as it has it’s next adventure. Alas, it’s not yet the season for off road mayhem. The trails remain closed (I think) and even if they’re legal, they’re soft and I don’t like making unnecessary ruts.

The PC800 is the new kid on the block. There is a ladder of trust in my garage, and the PC800 starts on the bottom.

Then again it’s a Honda and a model that’s well known for reliability. With minimal drama it started. Well done, cream puff!

Part 3 will ensue with my “Professor theory”.

Life sneaks up on you.

I’ve been meaning to blog but shit keeps happening. Literally.

On the heels (or at least within a couple months) of my earlier saga of plumbing (about which I blogged) I’ve had a second and entirely unrelated saga of plumbing. I didn’t need a second bout of the topsy-turvy whirlwind of uncertainty! Nor was it simple to diagnose and fix. I’ve had successes and failures. There’s been the thrill of victory. There’s been the agony of defeat. There’s been the creeping dread of when a thing you thought fixed… wasn’t. Each setback an undeniable reminder that we overclocked monkeys are but a hair’s breadth from civilization’s breakdown (or at least the loss of indoor plumbing).

It always comes as a shock when such things go wrong. It’s a short trip to becoming a defeated over-civilized fool. Eventually, you’ve exceeded your skillset. You can do naught but watch a turd circle its porcelain cage. A foul thing that’s doomed, pre-ordained from its inception, to go down to the black mire which it belongs. Yet it’s clinging to your world. It inserts itself in a place it doesn’t belong. It’s doing its best to stay relevant. It yearns to be a part of your life. It’s infuriating! A stinking loathsome disaster that does nothing but derail your busy day and reduce your standard of living. How we suffer when shit refuses to go down the hole where shit belongs.

But enough about politics.

Forgive the cheap joke. It had to be done. I’ll ramble more in part 2.