Saturday, February 19, 2005
The Road to Tucson
Carole invited me to come out to Tucson in early February, and the initial plan was for the weekend of Feb 12-13, but the rain was bad and the initial forecast for the following weekend was better, so I delayed the trip a week. The Monday holiday meant I'd have a day in between the two legs of the trip, making it much more relaxing, but still an adventure.
My dad turns 79 on Sunday, but I didn't want to miss out on our traditional birthday breakfast at Coco's, and persuaded everyone to meet up on Saturday instead. During breakfast we found out an interesting fact: Sheehan did not know what coffee cake was. Carol doesn't eat the carbs that come with breakfast anyway, so Sheehan got a chance to try it out.
The waiter was very good, and very funny, and everyone enjoyed breakfast immensely.
The earlier forecasts were wrong - dead wrong. After breakfast it took me quite a while to finish last minute packing, get the bike ready, put on my gear and hit the road. I wound up leaving around 10:20am.
The rain started in heavily just after the I-215, and it was apparent that my rain jacket (the heavy, red one) was not waterproof, or even close. I stopped off at a Sportmart in Redlands and got a pair of neoprene gloves, and a $6 rain suit to put over my shirts and under my cycling jacket. This improved my situation somewhat.
Between Yucaipa and Banning I passed two different accidents with overturned cars on the other (westbound) side of I-10. Somewhat sobering, but I knew I had a world-class motorcycle, engineered and equipped to handle all kinds of weather conditions.
I stopped for gas in Coachella, but after the big breakfast I wasn't hungry. In Blythe I needed a break, grabbing a cheeseburger and reading 10 pages of The Forgotten Man. The rain started in again east of Quartzsite, and continued on and off (mostly on) all the way to Tucson.
I stopped for gas at a Shell station in Tonopah. Between Tonopah and Buckeye, a white Chevy pickup road my tail while I passed a slower moving car. Once I cleared the car I was passing, I pulled over into the right lane to let the pickup pass, and made a waggling motion with my left hand to let the driver know I wasn't thrilled about the closeness. As they passed me, the passenger tossed a dark beer bottle onto the road just in front of the bike. No harm, but I was a little angry, and conjured up all sorts of retaliations in my mind. They pulled off after ten miles, with no further incidents.
I pulled in to Carole's garage around 8:00 (9:00pm MST), and finally accepted the offer of a hot bath to cure my shivering.
