Here We Go Again

Day One; Trip # 2

OK, we're jerks. For those of you who followed our blog last summer, we left you hanging. Our last post was in Idaho, and we didn't bother to ever catch you up on our adventures in Iowa, Chicago, on Lake Erie and the rest of the way home. We're sorry, really. To make up for this a little, we're posting the last 3 days of our 2011 trip, and we're on another trip right now during which we promise not to abandon you. If you want to hear about Chicago, Cedar Point and all of that, you'll have to have us over for dinner when we get back.

But for now, the present. After 10 months of rest, R. Girl is shined up and ready to go with a new k&n air filter and fresh oil. She's sporting the very same saddle bags as last year, with an added aluminum bottom to the one that sits over the exhaust. We've borrowed my Dad's ancient (or rather, retro) Diamond Brand external frame back back to strap to the sissy bar. We have a bag on the fork, and a bag on the handlebars. This should hold all of our stuff for the next 64 days as we ride up to Newfoundland and back.

Our day begins as many trips for old school couples do: man sits with running vehicle, calm and yet ready to go, while woman goes back in to pee, then checks all the locks, looks under the bed, looks in the fridge, then pees again, then check if the stove is off, and then is ready.

We ride just a stones throw to the Blue Ridge Parkway. My job as official navigatrix is easy today: get on the Parkway and stay on it for a little over 200 miles. We are riding up to our friend Lach's ( pronounced Lash) house in Floyd, VA, which was not our original plan. Last week, Lach and Traci joined us for an evening ride out to the Straightway Cafe, and in the course of dinner conversation, we talked about our upcoming trip. The Pirate and I had planned to go through Kentucky to get to Lake Erie. Lach and Traci suggested we join them in Floyd instead, since they'd be there anyway. We didn't hesitate. See, it's part of “the process” for us; to let an experience unfold, to identify and then jump at opportunities . As Yvon Chouinard said in 180 degrees South “If you compromise the process, you're an asshole when you start out and you're as asshole when you get back”. In other words, relax, and let an adventure change and affect you. To plan something out so that you are never surprised, or taken off guard, so that you are safe, unruffled and cool also guarantees that you remain an unchanged asshole, you know? You can't have unexpected joy and delight and know exactly what will happen and when; it just doesn't work that way.

So anyway, after a very lovely ride up the familiar and beloved Parkway, lunching on the typical Pirate & Mermaid fare of olives, charcuterie and dark chocolate, we veer off just past the Mabry Mill and meander under 4 miles through the country to Lach's charming get-away. We are so grateful for the bucolic scene that we decide to live on our picnic food, and ration it out so we don't have to leave, which is smart, because we are sick.

We have both enjoyed our first day's ride under the grasp of a really shitty, mundane cold. Picture it: super cute Mermaid in black leather and mirrored aviators blowing her nose every few miles into a bright red hankie. Well, we all new that I was both glamorous and tough.

And so the first day goes. We fall asleep to the sounds of night critters and a constant breeze in the tree tops, held gently in the bosom of benedryl and advil (and essential oils, of course).