Key West or Bust, Day 1

A Mother's Day
Sunday May 11, 2008.

Mother’s Day. A day for honoring those without whom we wouldn’t even exist. But for Kitty and me, also a day of new beginning.

Last Friday, Kitty had a fever of over 102. Yesterday, Saturday, I was out doing some final prepping on the bike when she appeared and said “I think I’ll mow the lawn.” And just like that, despite my astonished counsel to the contrary, she was out mowing the lawn. “If I can mow the lawn, I think I can sit on the motorcycle tomorrow,” she had said.

We’d decided to do the Mother’s Day thing when we get back, and thus it is that after church and a quick lunch, we’re on Final Departure Status. Extremely heavy weather is moving in later this afternoon, and we think if we get a good start we might reach our destination before the heaviest rain sets in. The sky is gloomy and fitful spits of rain splatter on the sidewalk and the driveway. Only once before in our travels have we done the Dance of the Rainsuit before departure. And I find I still have the touch: As usual, I do the whole dance and then realize I’ve left my keys inside my jeans pocket, causing me to unzip, unflap, dig out the keys, and do the whole thing over again. I smile as I think about how often I’ve done that and how it seems I’ll never learn.

“And there we go,” Kitty croaks in my headset, as she does every time we mount the bike and prepare to ride. Well, she always says that, she doesn’t always croak. I almost laugh but she just sounds so pitiful, having almost completely lost her voice in the past two days. And at 2:47 PM we gently roll out of the driveway into a light rain under heavy skies. Our destination is a modest 122 miles from home, to a tiny town south of Charlottesville within a few minutes of the California Sidecar factory where I have an appointment tomorrow morning to have a few things on my Escapade trailer checked over.

Within 20 miles the rain starts in earnest and it pelts the bike with huge star-shaped splats on the windshield, smacks onto our helmets, and pools on the road. Visibility is reasonable until about 20 miles out of Charlottesville, when the road spray and heavy rain seem to have depleted the tall Tulsa windshield of its magic rain-shedding properties. I generally ride alert but “loose” in rain, but today I find I’m tensing up and focusing all my attention on peering through the windshield instead of riding the ride. I tell Kitty we’ll stop at the next fuel station to fuel up, take a break, and re-apply the magic windshield cleaner that is so effective in keeping the windshield clear.

After this it’s like a new windshield and once again I can relax. Soon after making the turn onto US 250/29 at Charlottesville, the rain diminishes and we see a patch of blue sky in the distance. By the time we reach our tiny motel in the tiny town of Lovingston, Virginia, the clouds are gone. But having listened to the radio, we know that still to come overnight is another line of vicious thunderstorms for which tornado warnings have been posted in North Carolina and southeastern Virginia. They are heading our way.

We unpack the trailer, hang up our rain suits to dry, and I park the bike in a covered drive-through area suggested by the manager. For one of the very few times in our travels, I don’t touch the bike, don’t cover it, don’t wipe off a single water droplet. Because tomorrow we’ll do it all over again in the next line of storms.

Walking across US 29 to Vito’s Italian Restaurant, I ask Kitty how she’s doing. “I feel fine” she croaks. I hope she feels better than she sounds!