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Making the 250-mile run from Louisville to Knoxville was like huffing nitrous in a dentist's chair. In other words, it was transcendental.
Rising at the crack of dawn, I packed up my troubles in my old kit bag, dialed-up my down with the sickness playlist and set out for Marble City.
Actually, it was less crack, more gradual illumination. Like one of those slow-glow LED's hunters use to avoid scaring the wildlife (before they shoot it).
Which was just as well. I don't mean to gripe, but the flu had me in its grips.
I was scared that I wouldn't make it to Marble City in one go. That I'd end-up spending the night in a "motor court" in can-you-squeal-like-a-pig territory.
Then again, I had reasons to be cheerful (part 3).
My health had gone from practically comatose to merely miserable. The crushing heat that had bedeviled me since leaving Austin had taken a powder. Puffy clouds were keeping the sun at bay.
A fortuitous forecast, but for the morning only. Time to head 'em up and move 'em out.
As Fritz and I rolled out of suburban Louisville into the Kentucky countryside, the Bluegrass State's gently rolling hills and white-fenced farms cast their spell on my [literally] fevered imagination.
The fairytale landscape provided a perfect accompaniment to the music (American Tune) oozing out of my iPods.
And I dreamed I was dying
A dream that my soul rose unexpectedly
Looking back down at me
Smiling assuredly
And I dreamed I was flying...
Too right I was flying!
The combination of virus, velocity and twenty-three milligrams of extended-release Vyvanse opened the doors of perception. Wide.
Once again, I was part and parcel of the pastoral panorama.
About an hour into this out-of-body odyssey, I flashed back to white water rafting down the Fayetteville section of the misnomered New River (the world's second oldest waterway).
I sensed a link between memories of my sodden sojourn and my two-wheeled schlep through the Kentucky hinterland.
Like a river, the backroads followed the lay of the land: twisting around resistant topography, straightening out where they could, then twisting again. Always leading... somewhere. Some other road. Some other place.
I was caught in the current. Flowing through time and space, pausing only to cough, sneeze and splutter (a good name for a Dickensian law firm).
I concentrated on staying within the roads' confines, applying as much grace and pace as a flu-fighting Jew on a thousand pound motorcycle can muster.
Safety First! Ish
I won't say I drifted in and out of consciousness. That would be wrong, at least from a road safety point-of-view. As I explained to the nice officer.
Just kidding. About the cop.
Riding under the influence of a malicious microbe may not be as bad as drunk driving, but it's hardly an ideal way to "keep the shiny side up."
Recognizing that one collision with a solid object can ruin a motorcyclist's whole day.
Wicked Pissa
An unexpected diversion made my whole day, when SIRI instructed me to turn off an already obscure road for "old State Highway 61."
I found myself on a barely-paved pathway snaking its way through dense forest, with one-lane bridges fording and re-fording the stream running by its side.
The "highway" was too narrow for today's mondo-sized SUV's and pickup to pass side-by-side. There were no lane markings.
But there was an active railroad crossing – with only a sign and my noise-cancelled ears to warn of an approaching train.
This was a state highway? Trucks used this road? Just how slow and cumbersome was America's transportation system back in the day?
When it absolutely, positively has to be there eventually. Maybe.
Oh right. Trains. New highways. Better highways Super highways!
Sure but... try pulling over and taking a piss by the side of a modern Interstate.
My old state highway brookie break was uninterrupted, exposing me to the peaceful beauty of the Kentucky backwoods. Literally. One of those magic moments that makes a traveler glad to be alive.
Ship Shape?
A late afternoon breakfast at a Waffle House in Ferguson (where I wrote most of the above) had a similar effect, with the added benefit of air conditioned relief from the unwelcome return of solar hostility.
The trip's final 30 minutes passed uneventfully enough.
As I augured in on Knoxville, I felt the fog of flu flee. Just the thought of collapsing for a few days was enough to return me to the land of the living.
And yet, even as I settle in here, preparing to purchase a condo and establish a base camp (before heading West), I can't quite get my mind around the idea of parking Fritz in a garage for more than a day or two.
The prospect reminds of a quote by the prepositionally-challenged author John A. Shedd.
"A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.”
I know that applies to Fritz, the steadfast and true BMW K1600 GTL. The more important question: does description also apply to me?
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Can't wait to hear your plans for heading West.
For future ref, the immune system needs ample vitamin D to function properly. I learned about this, and started taking around 20,000 IU/week back in 2004. (I take 5000 IU pills 4x/week--it's least expensive like that.) Instead of having several colds annually, I now have a cold maybe every 4-5 years. Very little influenza. My one case of COVID was a nothing, although, to be sure, I'd had all my vaccinations. And, although it did prevent me from going on a trip earlier this year to view the eclipse in all its totality with friends of mine.
That vitamin D is important to immunity should be obvious from the fact that the immune system literally has hundreds of vitamin D…
After all these years, people still refer to the movie, deliverance, because according to Hollywood, all country people are a bunch of evil rednecks who want to have anal sex with total strangers. Of course, the reality is these are just hard-working people who get their hands dirty working for a living, and who were totally screwed by NAFTA and opening trade to China. What the elites snootily call flyover country, is actually filled with really honest, decent people. But you wouldn’t know this by listening to NBC or CNN.