Motorcycle Camping

I was glad I had my cell phone with me and was dressed for walking when I just happened to let the door close on me when I went out to turn my motorcycle this morning. It locked. Neither my daughter nor son-in-law was up yet so I went for a walk. While walking, I was able to talk with my parents, youngest sister, and her husband. I closed the conversation when I got back to their house. Since they still weren’t up, I went back out for another round. This time I tried to call one of my sisters-in-law without success. So I “tweeted” my predicament, which also posted to Facebook. One of my “friends” quickly commented: “hahahahahaha.” I have such sympathetic friends.

At my two of my gas stops I “tweeted.” At my son-in-law’s urging, I am now calling my Twitter poetry twoetry and the individual tweet poems twoems. He particularly likes the connection / connotation to it sounding like Elmer Fudd. I created a number of twoems today, some of which I actually tweeted.

In my heated
Gloves not needed,
The air is quite warm enough.

The cool sea breeze
Still didn’t please.
Its strength was its weakness.

I couldn’t see why they just slowed.
Here I am stopped on the road.
Great mileage, if I were moving.

In actual fact, I did get great mileage, 144 miles on the tank without going to my reserve tank.


I’m now camped for the very first time from my motorcycle. (See pictures.) There are a couple things besides toothpaste, floss, and sunscreen I’ve forgotten, a flashlight for one. At least I made it to the campsite before dark and there was a space. I was planning on getting into my tent before dark because there is at least one mosquito in it. Instead, I talked with a fellow motorcyclist who is riding from Arizona to his home in Canada. I picked up some great tips for long distance riding. Anyway, we talked until too dark to find a mosquito. I am using the Macbook screen as my light. At least my last two nights in my daughter’s guest bed has prepared me for my 1.75-inch Thermorest. The Thermorest may even be softer.

The Plasket Creek campground is particularly nice with nice tent areas and paved parking. I also don’t have a metal plate to put under my kickstand for soft dirt/turf parking.

There is no cell phone signal so I shut it off in order to have some juice when I finally get back to irradiation. This means that I couldn’t tweet my last two twoems. Since the moment has passed, they will probably never be “tweeted.” Here they are for your groans:

Two dogs doing it by the side of the road.
Two people watching them as they unload.
Not a pooper scooper in sight.

Who would have thought it?
Going north on 1
Is into the sun.

Keeping the shiny side up.

All atwitter

I really wasn't all atwitter on my ride down to Pasadena but I did text three messages to Twitter and via Twitter's application on to my Facebook status.  Once again I had more thoughts to tweet but didn't even have a cell phone signal at one gas stop.  (Motorcycle riding is probably as great a thinking activity as walking, at least there is plenty of time for it.  It is also a good platform to meditate on, pun intended.)

A good many of my thoughts were on Twitter, such as:  I am really impressed by the possibility of information density in a "tweet," a form of poetry, a "twery(?)."  While many people obviously don't use Twitter for anything more than, and often substantially worse than, mundane activities of their day, it could be a tool for concise, honed, well constructed observations.  While many of these constructions will be blank verse and not all that well honed as there really isn't a draft and edit process, some could be very good.  For the rhyming ones, the limited number of characters suggest an equally short rhyming scheme:  ABB or AAB.  For the latter I have two examples from my ride down:

Lack of water,

Getting hotter,

Brown is the new green.

Tumbleweeds along the fence...

Did they blow there?

Did they grow there?

I also thought that it would be cool to establish rules for a group game of chess, where a cluster of mutual followers play as a group against one person.  The one person would initiate the game with an opening move and the followers would "tweet" each of their personal moves.  Then the one person would "tweet" the majority response and his own next move.  There would have to be time limits involved to establish when the move majority can be determined.  (Unlike the Minnesota Senate race.)

Some of my other observations from the ride:  I passed a group of sheep that while all were rather close, there were distinct subgroupings of various sizes.  I couldn't help but think that it was a "clustered clusters" of sheep.  I also saw a single gas efficient car being carried by a large car hauling semi.  No wonder fuel efficient cars aren't profitable.  After the Grapevine, I was passed by a California Highway Patrol car on the right.  I knew that the posted speed limit was 65 and only looked down at my speedometer as he went by.  I was going 80.  This made me rethink what I always assumed was poor grammar in the "Speed Enforced by Aircraft."  While it obviously means speed detected by aircraft, it may be grammatically correct.  I certainly would speed up if I saw a plane coming up behind me, on the road.

My goal was to get to my daughter's and son-in-law's during daylight, which my late start, 11:30 AM, didn't help.  Once out of the Bay Area, my speed brought it back into a definite possibility, until the traffic stopped on I-210.  I was able to lane split until I finally made it to the front to find that all lanes were stopped.  
As I sat there with my motorcycle turned off, I texted my daughter to tell her I was stopped and took a couple pictures.  I had already put away my camera but would have probably missed the shot anyway when a semi rear ended a pickup truck on the opposite side.  I heard another crunch, didn't see the action, but later saw a similarly damaged black car parked to the side diagonally opposite me with another semi parked behind it.  Finally a police car with the special pushing bumper shoved a sandwiched police car to the side.  The stretcher I saw earlier may have been the cop driver.  I did not see any other damaged vehicles but I didn't do any "lookie loo" with the rather forceful reminder of what that could lead to on the other side of the expressway.