Brooklyn

I got in to Brooklyn last night after driving through Maryland to the Delaware coast then taking a ferry to New Jersey and up the Garden State Parkway to New York City.



After I arrived we checked out a cool free concert series they have running at a huge, empty, abandoned pool down the street. (pictured above)

I've been slacking!

It took me 3 tries to get this right
Originally uploaded by nolantreadway.

Here I am getting to Virginia which was last week. I was then in Roanoke, for a few days and then drove on up to DC with a pass through Monticello and a week here house-hunting and hanging out. I'm on my way to New York City tomorrow to see my brother and enjoy some more muggy weather (maybe "enjoy" is the wrong word).

I would like to promise that I'm going to write more soon but, let's be honest, that may not happen. However, the Treadhouse is always open over at flickr, where I have been uploading a few photos.

Our Nations Capitol

I'm in DC now, I got in last night and I'll be here for a few days. I'll post more pics and stuff soon.

Sweet Virginia

I'm in Roanoke now and headed to DC tomorrow. I don't have wireless access here so I can't update any pics but those should be coming in the next few days, along with a proper update of what I've been doing since I left Atlanta.

From Asheville, North Carolina

I made it in here last night and I'm leaving shortly for Roanoke, Virgina where I'll give a full update. Asheville is a great town!

Good bye Atlanta

I'll be leaving Atlanta tomorrow morning for Asheville, North Carolina. I've had a great time here the last few days seeing the Peachtree Road Race, going to the Carter Center and seeing the new (huge) Georgia Aquarium.

Not to mention I got caught up in a murder mystery (more on that when some light gets shed on the mystery itself), got to play some pub trivia (we lost but got a consolation prize for having the best team name: "Ken Lay, that SOB, owed me like twenty bucks"), got to eat some barbecue, watched a bit of world cup, and got to hang out with my sister and some of her friends. So all in all, time well spent.

Louisiana to Atlanta

A hair dye job even a Republican could love!

I was actually looking for a patriotic picture to post earlier today and I had to settle for stealing my brother's picture of the Blue Angels that is featured below. When I saw the pictures he took at the 4th of July parade at the cottage, I had to steal another one, it was just too good to pass up.

Now back to the open road.....

Since I left California on June 15 I have driven 4,067 miles. 613 of those miles came yesterday from Louisiana to Atlanta.

I have been checking the weather channel and www.weather.com religiously, trying to figure out the best way to avoid the rain. I decided that I could drive east on the interstate out of Lafayette, through Baton Rouge and then cut north into Mississippi and get away from the gulf coast that has been counjuring up all this rain. I managed to stay mostly dry on my ride east and as I cut up into Mississippi I figured I would be dry the rest of the way which turned out to be mostly true.



Now I went into Mississippi with an open mind and a willingness to overlook the dozens of jokes I'd heard in my life at the expense of these surely fine, upstanding people. But I had not been in Mississippi 5 minutes, even before I took the picture you see above, when I stopped for gas and as I was leaving what should I see but a man smoking a cigarette while filling up his gas tank! Literally playing with fire. I would say I did a double take but it was more like a quadrupple take and I might have asked the guy to put it out but I was already in my helmet and with my earplugs (headphones) in I'm neither a friendly face nor can I hear half of what people say to me - so I just took off as quickly as I could.

That was maybe the most interesting thing that happened to me all day.

I spent the rest of the day wondering how I got myself in the position of doing 600 miles in a day. I've now realized that being that time is not an issue on this trip I really should take it easier on myself and insert another day when it's appropriate.



And I trudge ahead on into Alabama. The last time I can remember being in Alabama was driving through to get to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in 2000. The time before that was in 1996 when my friend Kris and I road tripped to Atlanta to see the Olympics and went to Brimingham to see a couple early round soccer games. One thing I remember vividly from that trip, was waiting for one of the soccer games to start and the skies opening up to a torrential downpour. While most everyone else in the stadium went under the bleachers of Leigon Field since it was in between games and there was nothing to see, Kris and I sat in the rain storm, getting absolutly soaked to the bone. I can't say that we made the right decision that day but being that I still remember it maybe it 10 years later, maybe it was worth it. Anyway, it rained on me again as I was driving by Brimingham.

I have a lot of time to think while I'm driving and on this ride a lot of that time was spent trying to determine the weather. Specifically, trying to answer the question, "is it going to rain on me?" or "am I driving toward the rain?" or "how close is that cloud and will that cloud produce rain?" You get the idea. I've developed several techniques for trying to tell if it's going to rain on me, none of which are very reliable or scientific. I can look at the clouds and see what they look like, but that only really allows me to see the clouds that are ahead of me a bit, I can't really tell what the clouds right above me look like becuase it's hard to get your head pointed in that direction with a helmet on while you're going 70mph. I also can't really tell from the coulds if they are producing rain or not and I certainly can't tell if that cloud in front of me is one I'm going to be driving under or if the road will turn before I get there.

I can look at the pavement and see if it's wet and try and determine if it's rained on this spot earlier, this is somewhat helpful because if I'm trying to track the rain producing clouds in my head (which I am) than it's helpful to know where they've been. I can also make a half-assed guess at which direction the weather is blowing but, just like the rest of this experiment, it's less than precise.

I often find myself looking at the windshield wipers of the cars approaching and that has been helpful probably once but it doesn't offer much warning because if the cars coming toward me are in the rain than I'm either in the rain also or going to be within the next 5 seconds. Looking at the headlights of the cars approaching can also be helpful but again, it's just a guess as to why these cars have their lights on.

I can sometimes see the sky get darker when it's about to rain but then again sometimes this doesn't happen and it rains anyway. I can occasionally feel the air get a little bit colder, like the humidity has been taken out of it, and this can be a sign of rain, too.

It's all a very frustrating exercise as I try to figure out the last possible moment to put on my rain pants, which sometimes remind me of pant-shaped-garbage-bags. They actually remind me of the plastic suits that I wore several times in high school while trying to drop weight to make it into the lightweight boat on the crew team. Those suits are designed to make you sweat off water weight, these pants are supposed to keep my legs dry but I find I'm often as wet when I take them off from sweat as I would have been from the rain. (OK, that last part was an exaggeration).

But really the most frustrating part of the entire process is that when I'm right, and it is about to rain, my reward isn't something I want anyway.

So it rained on me in Birmingham.



And I finally make it to Georgia and about 50 miles after this picture I cross Perimeter Road and I'm on the home strech. And, as if to kick me one last time on the way out the door, the skies opened up on me while I was driving through downtown Atlanta and I got drenched for about 90 seconds, just long enough to make everything wet, and then stopped as soon as it started.

I may have made this day out to be more painful than it was, in fact, on the balance I'm quite glad I did it, but I don't want to do it again.

Alicia had brought some dinner home from her carbo-loading session and I had a great night sleep last night.

Happy 4th of July!

I made it to Atlanta after the longest ride yet yesterday, 613 miles. Starting in Louisiana, passing through Mississippi and Alabama and landing in Atlanta, Georgia proved to be a longer day than I wanted.

All is well here, my sister Alicia finished the Peachtree Road Race this morning and I'll post more later.

Since I haven't had a chance to upload any of my pics, I borrowed one my brother took this week in Traverse City, Michigan of the Blue Angels.

Lafayette LA - Not Quite New Orleans

Well, I write to you now from Lafayette, Louisiana. I was supposed to be in New Orleans tonight but weather and time prevented me from making it.

I started the day at Iftikhar and Rabia's house and I was set to leave at 10 am but Iftikhar, knowing my weaknesses, got me to stay for another half hour to watch the first 30 minutes of Meet the Press. Anyway, I got started on the road at 10:30 and it was drizzling out, just barely raining.

I knew when I started this trip that I didn't have any rain gear but I also knew that it would not rain on me until after Austin. When people would ask me what I would do about rain I would tell them "it's not going to rain until after Austin and I'll take care of it there" - so I did. I bought some rain pants in Austin and I figured my motorcycle jacket would take care of me above the waist. That was kind of true.

I pulled over within the first 10 miles of leaving this morning to put on those rain pants and get ready for a rainy day. It didn't rain for another hour or so. For the better half of the day, I would only put on my rain gear after driving in the rain for long enough to be completely wet and then when I would finally breakdown and put it on, it would stop raining.

It wasn't bad through Texas. I kept seeing ominous clouds that I knew better than to take a picture of, because it wouldn't turn out anyway. I've gotten very good at spotting rain clouds from far away. I haven't yet figured out how to get the highway in front of me to redirect itself away from said rain clouds, but I'm working on it. I gleaned some knowledge from the weather channel this morning and I learned that the weather I was getting was blowing in from the gulf, it was blowing north. So I avoided the gulf as long as possible, I took backroads so I would stay well north of Houston and everything was great.

As I approached the Louisiana boarder, things got dicey. I was keeping steady on my eastward bearing but the Gulf of Mexico was cutting north to get closer to me and, as a result, so were the rain showers. As I got close to the Louisiana border, I was about 50 miles from the coast and it started raining. It would rain on and off for my entire trip across half of Louisiana. I debated with myself if I would make it to New Orleans from the moment I crossed the state line.

You can see when you are about to get rained on. It doesn't happen out of no where, you can see it because you drive under a dark cloud and then it starts to rain. This feeling overtook me as I was driving over the tall bridge that is the western gateway to Lake Charles, on the downslope of the bridge it started to rain on me. It was rather unpleasant and caused me to stop at the next underpass and review my option, which were few.

As the day went on and I got more understanding of how the rain works, I learned that any safety concerns about the motorcycle and the rain were not anything in comparison to the uncomfortable feeling of being wet all over and forcibly driving yourself into more uncomfortable wetness. I take extra caution when driving in wet conditions but, besides slowing down a bit, there isn't much you can do and judging from the 2 motorcycles that blew passed me on the highway, it would appear you can drive faster than me and turn out alright.

Finally around 6pm I realized that I wasn't going to make it, I found a Wendy's and drug my water-logged self in and started making arrangements over a single combo. I was able to cancel my room in New Orleans without penalty and I actually found another hotel room in Lafayette, about 25 miles down the road, for the same price (still milking the pseudo-employee discount, of course) and by the time I finished with my meal, it was done raining, of course.

So, tomorrow, I have to wake up early and get on the road to Atlanta. It's another 600 mile day tomorrow but this time I'll be starting early. I am hoping the skies are clear tomorrow so I can take the drive through New Orleans and some parts closer to the coast (away from the highway) and perhaps see some of what has been done (or hasn't) over the last 10 months since Katrina.

Leaving Austin

I'm leaving Austin this morning, making the trek across the gulf coast to New Orleans where I'll spend a night (and see if my former employee ID will still get me a discount).

It has been a great week here in Austin, very relaxing. There was lots of down time but that was just what I needed and it has been great to be able to spend some time with Iftikhar and Rabia. The traveling continues today and I'll try and update something when I get to New Orleans tonight.