Here's the Plan

It is almost 11:30 p.m. Friday. My dry bag is stuffed with cold weather gear and t-shirts for folks along the way. The tank bag is loaded with camera, note pads, baggies, gloves, mints and a flashlight. I need to add my phone and lots of aspirin.

The rules for the Southern California Motorcycle Association Four Corners Tour are simple. Start in any of the four corners of the lower 48 states. Have your photo taken with your bike at a recognizable landmark, get a gas receipt with a date and time stamp from the location, locate the phone number for one of several confirmation sites, write the number on a form provided by the organizers, and ship the receipt, the form and the photo to the SCMA in the self-addressed envelope provided. The postmark on the first envelope starts the clock. To qualify as a finisher, you have 21 days to repeat the exercise in the other three corners of the country. The postmark on the fourth letter establishes you completion date. The rules flyer suggests that if you are on the last day at the last stop it might be a good idea to get the stamp on that last envelope hand cancelled. Once you've hit the four corners, you're done (in several ways, I'm sure), and you don't have to go back to the first corner--just ride home.

My plan is to make Key West the starting point, but the choice isn't looking too sound with smoke from wildfires in south Georgia and northern Florida reducing visibility on the highway and a strange "subtropical" low pressure system hanging just off the east coast of Florida. Since it has rained on me almost every day I've been on the bike, and since two years ago I cured drought in several states and two Canadian provinces, I should be most welcome in the areas with fires.

So, here's the plan: Leave Columbia on May 12 for Miami. Spend the night with friends Paula Ellis and Gary Galloway. May 13 ride with Galloway to Key West, complete the paperwork and ride back to stay with in-laws Allen and Sharon Cushman in West Palm Beach. May 14 ride to I-10 and turn left hoping to make Louisiana. May 15 to Austin, Texas to stay with my twin brother Ray and his wife Peg Neuhauser. I'll drop the bike off at the dealer for service and new tires. While the dealer is working on the bike Ray and I will play some golf and eat Tex-Mex at Chuy's. May 17 I'll head to Albuquerque for an overnight visit with my brother Jack and his wife Sally. May 18 I'll head west on I-40, following the historical route of U.S. 66 through Gallup, New Mexico and Winslow, Arizona. At Winslow I plan to be listening to the Eagles' "Take it Easy." Hopefully I can make it down to Phoenix. May 19 I hope to be at the second corner, San Ysidro, California. From there I'll head north figuring it'll take two days to get to Seattle. In Seattle I'll spend the night with my sister Mary and her husband Ken Owens. Mary and Ken plan to accompany me to corner three at Blaine, Washington. From there we will ride together through the North Cascade Pass before splitting off. Ken and Mary will ride back to Seattle, and I'll head east. My best guess is that it will take four days to get to Madawaska, Maine.

The most direct route from Blaine to Madawaska seems to be through Canada entering from the U.P. of Michigan. If all goes well in Canada I'll have a chance to visit with the U.S. ambassador in Ottawa. The ambassador is David Wilkins, the former speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives. David and I worked together on legislation for many years when he was a member of and then chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I was lobbying for strengthening South Carolina's open meetings and open records law.

A schedule on a trip of this nature and length is a WAG. My late friend and mentor Heyward Belser taught me about WAGS. They are "wild-ass guesses." You can see for yourself how well I make this schedule by clicking on the link to the AeroAstrosens satellite tracking site.

Now, I'm going to try to get some sleep so I don't have to stop in every rest area along I-95 to catch catnaps.