Jul 12 2015

The standard to beat: 1948 technology

I don’t know if it’s a matter of getting older, but my perspective on modern stuff continues to warp to the point that I am starting to despise all new consumer products. A trip to Best Buy still gets me a little excited about all the shiny new gear, but at the same time I have a mental reservation because I know that most of that cool stuff will fail far too soon, or be technologically obsoleted in just a few years.

My Vizio television doesn’t just turn on; it has to “boot up.” Periodically it tells me to wait because it’s downloading a software update. Sometimes it “crashes” like a computer, spontaneously shutting down and re-booting. My Sony Blu-Ray player will hang occasionally if it is connected to the wrong type of wifi network, even though I don’t actually use the wifi features.

I’m lucky to get three years out of a cell phone before it goes wonky or the battery ceases to hold a charge. Microwave ovens: maybe 4-5 years before they cook themselves. By adding electronic control panels, manufacturers have even managed to make it likely that a traditional oven or a washing machine will need a $200 repair after a few years.

All of this technology has a short life span, and we just accept it as part of the rapid pace of consumerism. We aren’t really buying tech anymore, effectively we just rent it by virtue of our expectation that it won’t last. Thinking that any technological device we buy today could be handed down to the kids as an heirloom is a laughable prospect, even with high-end kitchen appliances. Instead, we are encouraged to buy extended warranties to perhaps eke out another year or two before the device heads for a landfill.

The idea that once upon a time you could buy an electric appliance and use it for decades is probably bewildering to most people born after the era of Compact Disc. Why wouldn’t you want to toss that old dinged-up thing after a few years, and buy the latest version with new programmable features, for a cheap price?

Ah, but what they don’t know is the heartening feeling of a trusted old tool, whether in the garage workshop or the kitchen. Eleanor’s Sunbeam Mixmaster Model 9 is a great example. Originally owned by her father, she has owned it and used it as long as I’ve known her. That wonderful old machine just keeps going and going, because the Mixmasters were made in an age when you had to build a product that lasted, if you were going to convince people to spend money on it.

What a strange philosophy in today’s world, eh? Mercedes-Benz used to be that way—I remember the parents of childhood friends who bought a Mercedes at considerable cost back in the 1970s and justified it because the car would last longer than what was coming out of Detroit at that time. It did too, until the Vermont road salt finally consumed it. Now people buy premium cars for reasons other than longevity, because hanging on to a car implies you can’t afford a new one. Many buyers ditch the car at the end of their lease, so the manufacturers have less incentive to build a car that lasts longer than the average car payment.

A few months ago Eleanor’s Mixmaster seemed to be running a little warm. After 67 years of use, it had a right to, I suppose. We were concerned that the motor might burn out, so I suggested she switch to the other vintage Mixmaster I bought back in 2013, while I disassembled the Model 9 and refurbished it.

As part of this, I offered to completely clean up and repaint every component of the Mixmaster. I would even source replacement decals, so the finished project would look like a brand new 1948 appliance. But Eleanor didn’t want me to go any further than cleaning up the dried bits of dough that were stuck to it, and I immediately understood why. A “new” Mixmaster wouldn’t look like the trusted old family friend she’s known for decades. Losing the patina would be like erasing memories. The value of the Mixmaster wasn’t how good it looked after all these years, it was how worn it looked.

Now, I could probably find another Model 9 out there in good working condition for fifty or sixty dollars. They aren’t particularly rare, and they don’t have a ton of market value. But this was the one her father touched, and which they used together, and that provenance gave it sentimental value. Sentimental value trumps market value every time.

Some parts for the old Mixmasters aren’t available anymore, so I bought a working donor for parts. I bought a new power cord, and found a guy who sold the old service manuals so I bought one of those too. Then I took the Model 9 apart, ran out of time, and put all the parts in a box. Eleanor’s Mixmaster sat there for months, disassembled, until last week when I finally had time to tackle it.

The service manual was a strange thrill all by itself. Typewritten pages, only two sketches, and meticulous instructions on how to diagnose, repair, lubricate, and adjust every little mechanical component. I could imagine some engineers in a post WWII office, writing and revising the manual in longhand before finally handing it over to the secretarial pool to be typed up and proofread. You just don’t see manuals like that anymore for most products, because they’re not worth fixing.

The interior of a vintage Mixmaster is a brilliant bit of design, almost like a watch, with dozens of carefully crafted bits that work together in mechanical harmony. Part of my motivation for taking on this project was to learn; inside the Mixmaster are spinning governors with breaker points, a resistor and capacitor, calibrated springs, carbon brushes, and gears—none of which I understood before I removed the first screw. I was fascinated to delve into the world of 1940s engineering and see how it was done before integrated circuits and microprocessors took over.

What really impressed me was the incredible durability of the design. This thing is old enough to collect Social Security, and yet once I had it apart I found no significant wear on any of the components. I felt faintly ridiculous for having bought a parts donor; all the Model 9 needed was some ancient dough cleaned out from the air vents, a new power cord, fresh grease, and a minor adjustment to the “armature thrust screw.” It’s now re-assembled and working as good as new.

Good for another sixty years? Perhaps so. All I am sure of is that it will turn on instantly every time we twist the dial, and it won’t ever need a software update, and it won’t report what we’re mixing to any social media sites or the NSA, and it will never be worthless. Manufacturers of modern technology: there’s your standard to beat.

Jul 01 2015

Farewell to the Interstate

After that epic hike to the Keet Seel cliff dwelling in Navajo National Monument, our little Airstream Interstate adventure was more than half over. We had one last thing to do: visit the WBCCI International Rally in Farmington NM, about 2.5 hours drive east.

For those who don’t know the International Rally was for many years “the” big thing to do in the Airstream world. Back in the heyday a few decades ago, these rallies would attract over 3,000 Airstreams—essentially creating entire temporary towns, like Burning Man does today. Lately, with the general decline in clubs, the International Rally has brought in about 300-400 Airstreams, which still makes it the largest Airstream event in the world. (By comparison, Alumapalooza brings in about 125-180 Airstreams, and Alumaflamingo in Sarasota was the second largest Airstream event in 2014 with 250 trailers.)

The day of the giant RV rallies is past. I think everyone has realized that it’s not about sheer volume anymore, it’s about quality of experience. The WBCCI International Rally is an important event for the club members whether it brings in 100 or 100,000. People go to conduct club business, meet their old friends, and maybe trade in their Airstream for a new one.

That’s why we were there. Our mission was to show off the Interstate Grand Tour and hopefully find someone who wanted to buy it, because Airstream didn’t need it as a “media loaner” any longer. Brett put on his best sales attitude and within 36 hours of arriving he had found a couple who really wanted it. Mission accomplished.

After the weekend we had to get the Interstate back to Arizona so it could be made ready for sale. Monday morning we saddled up for the final drive, 400 or so miles back to Phoenix where Brett would catch a jet home.

But hey—why just drive straight home? Northern Arizona is loaded with cool places to visit, and we had a $152,000 motorhome to play with for one more day. So we detoured through a few spots …

… like Petrified Forest National Park, off I-40 in northern Arizona.

… and one of the famous wigwam motels, this one in Holbrook, AZ right on “Historic Route 66.”

… and finally down in elevation from the cool piney Mogollon Rim (75 degrees with light showers), along the twisting Disney ride they call the Beeline Highway, and into the scorching heat of the Phoenix metroplex (111 degrees).

We picked a small RV park in Mesa mostly because it was the close to the airport and the only amenity we wanted was 30-amp power to keep the air conditioner cranking. There was a swimming pool but even a splash in the water doesn’t seem terribly inviting when it’s that hot. That night we walked one block to dinner (a very poor choice of restaurant despite high ratings—curse you, Yelp) and then walked straight back to the air conditioning in the Interstate before we melted into the pavement.

Hmmm…what to do now? Trapped by the scorching heat outside, there seemed only one option, and that was to break out a “guy movie” (e.g., one with science fiction, action, violence, and a bare minimum of romance or gentle emotion) and settle in for Movie Night. The only problem is that the noise of the air conditioner blowing on High made it difficult to hear the audio. Fortunately, being frequent travelers, we both had our Bose noise-reducing headsets handy. We plugged them into the back of the bedroom TV using a splitter, put on the movie, and the background noise of the air conditioner vanished as we reclined on our individual twin beds. It seemed like we were watching in a private theater, with ice cream bars handy in the freezer and comfortable pillows under our heads.

I highly recommend the noise-reducing headset solution to other RV’ers who hate the noise of the air conditioner—or, you can trade in your current RV for a new Airstream with ducted air. I’m sure my friends at Airstream wouldn’t mind that.

The next morning I dropped Brett off at Sky Harbor and zipped down I-10 to Tucson to get away from the rapidly-building heat of the day. In Tucson it was a mild 88 degrees, not bad for unloading all the stuff into the house. I discovered that the Interstate, despite being tall, fits into my carport just barely so it could be kept in the shade and plugged into 30-amp. I think all the signs are telling me that I should have one of these things. Perhaps I should launch a GoFundMe campaign to see if everyone wants to chip in to get me one? (Just kidding.)

Now I’m Interstate-less (Under-stated?) and I don’t have a tow vehicle for the Caravel, so it’s time to switch gears for a few weeks. I’ll dig the TBM gear out of the closet and start exploring Tucson’s hidden gems, when I have time away from work.

But if you crave reading about travel adventures, don’t lose faith. Later in July I’ll be heading to Oshkosh WI for the amazing EAA Fly-In, staying on-site for a week in an Airstream motorhome. That should be a very interesting week if you (like me) want to see lots of cool airplanes.

Jun 28 2015

Keet Seel

We left off yesterday with Brett and me hiking down a dusty road in Navajo National Monument with packs on our back, headed down into the canyons below.

Our goal was the remote Keet Seel cliff dwelling, reputed to be the most complete and original site of its type in the southwest. The only way to get to it (unless you are a Park Ranger) is to hike nine miles, down 1,000 feet of elevation to the canyon floor and then crossing a meandering stream dozens of times. There is no road other than a rough jeep trail that the Rangers use, and even they have to dismount at a waterfall and hike in the final two miles.

There are no services available in the canyon, no cellular coverage, not even potable water. You have to bring in everything you need, and pack everything back out again. There are two basic approaches: either bring a tent to spend the night in the primitive campground (basically a few open spots in a forest of oak trees), or do the entire hike as a single-day trip which means you have to complete the entire 18-mile round-trip between sunrise and sundown.

Hiking down into the canyon is of course fairly easy. The trail descends sharply, losing about 700 feet of elevation in just over half a mile. But every step is a reminder that you’ll have to go back up again, and in moderately thin air compared to what most of us are accustomed to: 6,300 to 7,300 feet elevation.

Once at the bottom, there’s a stream. The trail crosses this stream constantly, and for some of the hike it’s easiest just to walk in the water. We counted on the way back and found that we crossed it 82 times. So we switched from hiking boots to water shoes at this point, and did the remaining 6 miles or so that way.

The silty river bottom sometimes gets a bit sticky and soft, and there’s even the possibility of quicksand. It’s not the “Gilligan’s Island” sort of quicksand that looks like cooked oatmeal and sucks in people whole; it’s more like very unstable sand that can take your shoes off if you linger. We ran into a little bit here and there.

The water in the stream is pretty lively with small creatures, insects, and microscopic organisms from upstream pollution (from cattle and horses). So it’s not safe to drink without treatment, and the NPS just tells everyone to bring a gallon of water per person, per day. For us, that meant 32 pounds of water to carry in.

We weren’t psyched by that, and decided to use a Katadyn Vario Pro water filter, followed by a Steripen UV water purifier. This combination cleans the water and sterilizes any microscopic baddies that might have slipped through. We ended up drinking about 2.5 gallons each of treated river water and it was fine. (Even tasted good, after the charcoal filtration!) The Vario clogged up by the end of the trip, due to a fair amount of sediment in the river.

We didn’t see a lot of wildlife on the hike. Plenty of birds, one harmless snake, two wild horses, and a few field mice that checked out our tent after sunset.

You might be getting the idea that the actual cliff dwellings weren’t the entire point of this hike, and you’d be right. This trip proves once again that it’s more about the journey than the destination. With beautiful blue skies, surrounded by sheer walls of red Navajo sandstone painted with ancient natural varnish, and a stream babbling beneath our feet, the miles of walking passed surprisingly quickly.

When we arrived at the camping area we decided to pitch the tent but leave off the rain fly since the weather was hot and sunny. This turned out to be a minor error, since the ruins of Keet Seel were about a quarter-mile away. We hiked over (now feeling very light with our packs ditched back at camp), knocked on the door of the resident Ranger, and arranged to meet him for our tour. Shortly after, we heard thunder and saw clouds building to the south.

Max the Ranger was very patient. I guess you’d have to be when you are stationed at a lonely outpost for 5 to 8 days at a time, waiting for visitors to drop in. He agreed to delay our tour until I ran down the hill, across the stream (again), up another hill, and into the campsite to put up the rain fly, and then back again. That took about 20 minutes.

Finally we got our tour of Keet Seel. The site has been abandoned since about 1250 AD, but was in use as a “city” for a long time. I don’t want to give away the full story (you could write a book, and I’m sure somebody has), so I’ll just say that of all the cliff dwellings I’ve seen, this is the most complete, original, and artifact-rich one ever.

You approach the site by climbing a 70-foot ladder. The ladder is modern of course, since the ancient dwellers “closed” this dwelling when they left, leaving a large white fir log symbolically across the entrance. The nearby Hopi, who regard themselves as descendents of the people who lived here, say that someday the people will return to this place.

After climbing the ladder, the dwelling is revealed, complete with homes, courtyards, granaries, pottery, corn cobs, turkey bones, petroglyphs, pictographs, and much more.

We spent over an hour with Max discussing the site, and it was fascinating. We were the only people to hike the canyon that day, so he wasn’t expecting any other visitors and he wasn’t in a hurry. We explored about half of the ruin (the other half is off-limits due to fragility).

Since we started early, the hike, camp set up, and tour were all completed by about 3:00 pm. We had the rest of the afternoon to do basically nothing, which was (for both of us) a rare privilege. We were lying in the tent reading paperback books, admiring the view of the nearby cliffs, and listening to the insects buzzing by, when Brett finally said, “Do you know how long it has been since I just read a book outdoors with nothing else to do?”

The interpretive guides suggest that we should leave behind as much of the modern world as we can when we visit this site, and I agree. Our cell phones would not work, so no one could reach us with problems and questions from the “outside” world. We had nothing to call us away, nowhere to go. It was only an afternoon of enforced relaxation, but it was great and memorable.

The next morning we rose with the dawn and began the long hike back out. The river had declined slightly, since there was no rain overnight, and the temperatures were cool in the shadows of the canyon until late in the morning.

Like all good trips in my experience, we of course had a minor mishap. Talking as we hiked, we completely missed the turn-off from the river and hiked an additional mile or so down the canyon. Only when we encountered an unexpected waterfall did we realize the mistake. So our return trip ended up being about 10 or 11 miles.

That wasn’t too awful in the big picture, but I have to say that the combination of altitude, heat, and a heavy pack made the 1,000 foot ascent seem much steeper. I ran out of air several times above 6,500 feet and so we stopped frequently to rest, eat energy snacks and drink water.

It’s not an easy hike. It’s not a short one. You’ll spend most of the day wading through water and dodging quicksand. But it was one of the most rewarding hikes I can recall. Instead of the usual mountaintop view, we had a private encounter with a sacred cultural site that is nearly as it was left 800 years ago. You can’t visit a place like that and not have your perspective changed, at least a little bit.

After the hike we collapsed into the Airstream Interstate Grand Tour and fired up the hot water for showers. It took a couple of hours to clean up and re-pack before we were ready to head onward. Our next destination was Farmington, NM, about 150 miles to the east, for the WBCCI International Rally. I’ll talk about that in the next blog.

(If you want to see more photos from this trip, check out my Flickr album entitled Navajo National Monument.)

Jun 27 2015

A Grand Tour

I’ve been looking forward to this week for a long time—and wondering if we could really pull it off.

It started on Saturday, when I was in Vermont after the 6-day motorcycle trip to the Adirondacks. I only had a couple of days to catch up on work and re-pack for a trip out west. From Sunday morning on, I had the singular experience of waking up somewhere and knowing that I would be going to bed somewhere entirely different that night.

In the Airstream, this is fun. You can roam where you want, knowing that each night you will end up in your comfortable rolling home and familiar bed. But when the travel involves airlines and hotel rooms, the charm tends to slip away quickly.

It began on Saturday night when Eleanor and I relocated to an airport motel, so that on Sunday morning at 3:30 a.m. she could take me to catch a flight from Vermont to New York City, and onward to Sacramento CA. I met Brett at the airport in Sacramento, to drive around California’s beautiful countryside. (We were scouting a site for Alumafandango 2016, and things went very well. We’ll have an announcement about that in July.) That night we split a room at some nondescript motel off Rt 49, in an area of California that was once known for gold mining, and now is known for wineries. That was our 27-hour Day One.

Monday morning we scouted some more, visited the state capitol, and caught a late flight to Tucson, getting in around midnight. We settled into my house for the night. That was Day Two.

Tuesday morning we picked up a shiny new Airstream Interstate Grand Tour on loan from Airstream, at the local dealership (Lazydays), loaded it up with about 100 pounds of gear and food (much of which Eleanor had set out for us a month ago) and launched immediately toward Arizona’s Mogollon Rim. We spent that night at Fool Hollow Lake State Park in Show Low. Day Three.

Now I have to say that the Airstream Interstate was a fantastic relief after jet planes and motel rooms. Not only could we slow down our pace of travel, but it meant that for a while we could sleep in a bed more than once. The Airstream, stocked with our food and gear, could be our home.

And what a glamorous home it is. The new Grand Tour floorplan of the Interstate is a big improvement for those who want more of a traditional RV. Bigger kitchen, double the fridge/freezer space, much more storage, permanent beds, a nice little desk, and many other small pleasantries make it really usable. If you read my blogs from last summer when I tried out a regular Interstate, you know I liked driving it, and the Grand Tour retains that fine handling and ride (and an incredible list of safety features).

When Brett and travel together there’s always a little bit of a battle over who gets to drive, and with the Interstate there was no question we both wanted the wheel as much as possible. I had picked the most scenic route I could on our northward journey, from Tucson to Globe, and then up to the beautiful Salt River Canyon, and finally up the Mogollon Rim to Show Low where the pine trees are tall and the summer air is much cooler than the low desert below. Even when we were gaping at the scenery deep in the Salt River Canyon, Brett wanted to keep the driver’s seat rather than give it up to get a better view.

We averaged about 15.5 MPG on that trip, which is pretty impressive for a 25-foot long motorhome on a hilly climb that eventually ended well over 6,000 ft. Or at least we thought that was good until the next day when we averaged 18 MPG on more level terrain through the Navajo nation in northern Arizona.

The goal for this leg was Navajo National Monument, a less-visited national park near Kayenta AZ. We first visited as a family on 2008, and hiked 5 miles roundtrip to the impressive Betatakin cliff dwelling. Ever since that trip, I’ve wanted to go back to visit the even-more-impressive Keet Seel cliff dwellings, and this trip was finally my chance.

You don’t just pop in and hike to Keet Seel. The trip requires a permit from the park, a mandatory orientation by a ranger, good gear, and some stamina. It’s an 18 mile round-trip on foot if you do it right, and considerably longer if you miss a turn in the canyons. (More on that later.) So you can see that getting to this point was the product of planning we’d done months in advance.

The Interstate turned out to be an ideal base camp for this trip. We parked in a canyon view site (in the Navajo Nat’l Monument campground, which is free, no hookups), and spent the evening checking our gear and eating dinner outside with a spectacular view of the sunset on the red Navajo Sandstone. One nice thing about the Interstate is that it fits in places a travel trailer couldn’t go, and there’s virtually no setup after arriving. We just pushed the electric awning button and slid open the big side door.

And that was Day Four. Funny how the days seemed to be much more filled with adventure and camaraderie now that we were traveling at about 50 MPH instead of 500.

The next morning we hoisted our packs, loaded with about 30 pounds of gear and water each, and walked right from the door of the Airstream down a dusty road and began our descent into the canyons …

Keet Seel deserves its own blog entry, so I’ll write more about that in the next day. Stay tuned.

Jun 20 2015

Six nights in the Adirondacks, no #EscapedPrisoners

I’ve been looking forward to this summer for a long time. I was overloaded with work and projects from January through May, so once everything (including Alumapalooza) was done, I intended to switch back to the activity I like best: traveling. After picking up E&E in Cleveland, we had our usual decompression session in Ohio, including some game playing with our Woodruff/St Peter friends and a nice visit to the Frank Lloyd Wright “Welztheimer-Johnson House” in Oberlin.

FLW Weltzheimer-Johnson house Oberlin — Photo credit: Larry Woodruff

Then we zipped across New York to settle the Airstream in Vermont on the shores of Lake Champlain. The Airstream will stay here until early October, while we use it as a summer camp and base of operations.

The first major adventure on the schedule was a motorcycling trip with my brother Steve and our friend Eric, much like last year’s exploration of the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec. It seems that taking the BMWs out for a rough road trip is becoming an annual tradition, since we’ve been doing it every summer since 2012.

This year we scaled back a little compared to the Gaspé trip, planning just six days in New York’s Adirondack State Park. Six days might seem to be a lot for a state park if you aren’t familiar with the Adirondack region, so keep in mind that the “park” is actually about 1/3 of the entire state of New York. By backtracking and wandering down every dirt road we could find, we managed to accumulate over 1,000 miles of travel.

Traveling like this is not what you’d call comfortable, but that’s part of the point. We are out to explore, and for me it’s a chance to explore in ways that we wouldn’t normally do with the Airstream. These motorcycle trips are conducted with minimal gear, only what we can carry on the back of the bike: tent, sleeping bag, pad, some clothes, a few tools, snacks, and not much else. We spend every night in the tent unless it’s pouring rain when we have to set up or tear down. This year we managed five nights out of six in the tents despite massive rains on several nights.

The Adirondacks are known for their beautiful mountains and rugged wilderness, rustic lodges and camps that are relics of the Golden Age, quaint towns, and biting insects. All of these things are present in abundance, but there are also many reminders of their industrial origins: abandoned factories and paper mills, dozens of dams, long-closed mines and flooded quarries, decaying brick buildings, grassy old rail lines, and logging roads. People forget that the Adirondack infrastructure was first developed not for tourists or sportsmen, but for miners of lead and iron, loggers of trees, and railroads to carry all the plunder and materials to away to cities in the 19th century.

While many rail lines have become snowmobile trails and many dams have been converted to produce clean hydroelectric power, there’s still plenty of evidence of the past, and that’s what Steve and Eric like to explore. They are sort of “Rural Explorers,” hunting up mines, rails, dams, factories, mills, roads, and airports that have been left to slowly decay. While my fellow travelers do respect the law (at least in moderation) and don’t go past locked gates, they do have a tendency to go in places that—while not technically trespassing—the general public would not be welcome.

This puts me in my “discomfort zone,” since I’m the sort of person who feels awkward occupying a Handicapped Parking spot for 5 seconds to drop someone off, or standing on the wrong side of the moving walkway at the airport. Riding a motorcycle through an open gate and down a dirt road to wander around an old iron mine, or peeking into a crumbling paper mill is not my preferred activity. The sites interest me, but there’s always that sense of “what if we get caught?”

But I suppose it’s good for me to test my own boundaries and even stretch them a little. What’s the worst that could happen? Hmm …. we could get arrested, yelled at, injured, lost, or encounter a group of zombies. So lots of things could happen. Nothing spectacular actually did.

Perhaps the toughest experience was when we rode a few miles around a large flooded quarry and discovered we could not get out because all of the gates (other than the one we entered) were locked or barricaded. This required back-tracking through some fairly technical road conditions including loose sand and rock, large mud puddles, steep hills, and washouts.

The photo at left shows the one mud puddle we decided not to cross during our six-day trip. Puddles are deceptively hard on a motorcycle. You might easily ford such a place with four wheels, but on two wheels it’s easy to get stuck in a muddy bottom, or slip. Either way the result is unpleasant. Slipping in a small puddle last year in the Gaspé gave me a shoulder injury that hurt for seven months.

The biggest drama of the entire trip was about the escaped prisoners from the prison in Dannemora NY. Everyone in the Adirondacks was talking about it, in every cafe, store, campground, and gas station we visited. We certainly didn’t relish the idea of encountering the two desperados while camped overnight, so each day began and ended with a quick check of the news to see if they’d been caught yet. We finally decided that at least if we found them we’d stand to collect the $100,000 reward (assuming we lived to tell the tale), and the survivors could split it. As you probably know, the escapees are still at large, so we are not any richer but we’re also not dead.

When we got to Dannemora it was quite a scene: 800 law enforcement officers including the State Corrections Emergency Response Team, local and state police, Forest Rangers, and many others. The media were camped out and hunting for stories, since no news was coming from the search. (In the photo above Steve is being interviewed by the Press-Republican for his theory of where the bad guys had gone.)

Blackhawk helicopters buzzed overhead, and the impact of the $1 million/day cost was evident in every convenience store and restaurant as officers came and went all day long. We were stopped at three checkpoints near Dannemora to be positively identified as someone “not matching the description” before we could proceed.

Other than intruding into crumbling old structures, the other big joy for Steve is to find the most rugged roads possible so that we can all use our BMW F650 motorcycles for their highest purpose. These are “Dual sport” bikes, meaning that they are equally happy on pavement and washed out dirt roads. The Adirondacks have plenty of both. I am sure that we averaged about 50% dirt because every time Steve spotted a dirt turnoff to nowhere, he’d zip off like a dog chasing a squirrel. Eric and I just followed without question and hoped for the best.

The photo at left shows one of the poorer results (or “better” depending on your point of view). Lots of rain lately has left many of the roads looking like this. Those roads are posted with big yellow signs that say “Seasonal Use Road — Limited Maintenance,” which is like waving a plate of Buffalo chicken wings in front of my brother’s nose. He will go after it. Fortunately, none of us crashed or dropped a bike during the entire trip.

And truly not knowing what’s around the next corner can be both thrilling and rewarding. Sure, it’s quite possible that if you don’t plan you might miss something, but if you don’t plan you might also find something that the guidebooks won’t tell you about.

Rain was the other minor drama of the trip. There is no such thing as a dry week in June in the Adirondacks. Our first night at Lake Luzerne State Campground was a full-blown thunder-and-lightning experience with heavy rain that left a small lake under my tent. I found a live salamander there while packing up the next morning.

Our second night at Lake Durant State Campground was pleasantly dry, but the next night was forecast to be so dismal that we took refuge at a nice end-of-the-road motel at the edge of the remote Stillwater Reservoir. The fourth night at Meacham Lake State Campground was technically not rainy but there was enough condensation that it was hard to tell, and in any case we were already soaked because we got caught in a massive storm earlier that morning which forced us to hole up in a small town convenience store for three hours.

The fifth night at Wilmington Notch was dry enough that my boots went from “soaked” to “damp” overnight—about as good at it gets while tent camping—and we had a final day of riding where all the forces of nature aligned to give us perfect weather.

All things considered, we did pretty well. I don’t expect the comforts of the Airstream on this sort of trip. It’s about different values: exploration, camaraderie, simplicity, challenge. Men and machines, sleeping in tents, slapping away black flies, and eating in 1-star diners. Lots of time to think while the pine trees slip past and the single cylinder of the motorcycle thumps. One mile on a slippery, potholed dirt road can be just as memorable and exciting as anything else we might do in life. I hope we’ll do it again next summer.