Packing for tomorrow’s motorcycle trip. This one won’t be too rigorous, just a six-day ride to Flagstaff, Las Vegas, Zion National Park, and home again. Mostly I’ll be in Las Vegas with my son Gregory, daughter-in-law Beth, and grandson Quentin. I leave in the morning, heading for Flagstaff via back roads through Globe and Pinetop.
The weather forecast says rain’s possible Wednesday, the day I’ll ride from Flagstaff to Las Vegas, but I don’t expect a deluge, just isolated showers. If it does rain, I’ll get wet. Then I’ll dry out. At any rate I’ll have all day Thursday in Las Vegas to recover.
My son plans to borrow a bike and ride with me Friday to Utah and Zion. If the weather near Zion doesn’t look good we’ll head west to Death Valley instead. Saturday I promised to stay in Vegas to watch Quentin and his team play baseball. Sunday I’ll head home via Kingman, Wickenburg, and Phoenix.
As always, I find myself overthinking packing, since space is at a premium. One extra pair of pants, or two? Where to stow the camera? It needs to be protected from the weather but easily accessible, and on that subject, shall I bring the big tripod or the small one? Paperback and Kindle, or just the Kindle? Should I make room for a dry pair of riding boots in case it rains and soaks my regular pair? Damn, boots take up a lot of room … but hey, you can stuff ’em full of socks and underwear. Need to leave a little extra space in case I pick up a new t-shirt or two.
Riding a motorcycle is like flying an airplane. You have to be anal to do it right!
Donna decided we needed to watch Nebraska the other night. I bit my tongue and punched in our Amazon PIN on the remote to pay for it, knowing I wasn’t going to enjoy it. By which I don’t mean to say the movie’s bad: Nebraska deserved all the recognition it got at the Academy Awards, Bruce Dern in particular. But I knew from the snippets we’d seen on Oscars night it was about stupid people in dreary settings, and I knew it would depress me. Boy, did it … I wanted to slit my wrists! If there is a hell I can only pray it doesn’t involve being surrounded by stupid people for all eternity, and if ever there was a movie about the hell of being surrounded by stupid people, Nebraska is it. Except the characters in the movie don’t know they’re stupid and trapped. Because they’re stupid.
Next time we pop for a movie at home, I’m pickin’.
I’ll check in from the road somewhere. If you’re driving around in the Southwest and you see me on my Goldwing, please don’t run me off the road! Oops, you’re probably from Nebraska. Well, forget what I just said about the movie. I love Nebraskans!