We draw toward the final preparations and I’m happy about the trip. I’m tempted to add a day of testing with a loop around the lake [Okeechobee] but I figure I could afford to crawl back from Valdosta if I had to. It looks like a go within the next 72 hours. The sidecar is a winner, confirmed (already) beyond doubt and it matches my personality. What’s missing is the woman. The one that’s actually done something different in her life that is well-thought out and unique? Experience shows that this does not occur in Florida. It may, but it is so well-hidden that the purpose is defeated. Too bad, that sidecar is really comfortable.
Another sign I’m over the biggest hurdles is once again surpluses. While I don’t inventory everything, I keep track of where I put it. I’ll go to count how many razors I’ll need for the trip and find a two year supply in the cabinet, all top quality bought on sale. I forget the sale, but trust my habits—the last time I was out of cash (2006 – 2010), my stockpiles lasted the entire time; I never went without pencils, disks, or music. You know me, can’t live without pencils.
Out of curiosity, not an unknown around here, I watched a NOVA documentary on cathedral construction. While stained glass isn’t part of the support structure, the fact some of the windows are 800 years old and not cracked means the walls aren’t moving. Yet I would not feel comfortable living in such a building, held in place mainly by gravity. Did I learn anything? Sure. Gothic stuff doesn’t apply much to robots. Yet.
Later. Much as I want to be on that highway again, common sense says make the short hop first. For openers, driving the sidecar is more of a workout than sitting behind a steering wheel, I’d say twice the calories, but less stress. Nor do I know my own physical limits on such a machine. These should be checked before I do anything ambitious. So, I’ll take another day.
Trent called, he’s in the middle of a complicated and important case, which I kind of figure when he doesn’t call. When I travel, you’ll get more photos, which is not only because the environment is richer, but if you’ve ever tried to sustain audience interest in writing, you know to pace the local photos. Myself, I know there are repeats [photos] in here I haven’t had time to track down. Anyway, those who want to follow the trip by email get a lot more photos than casual readers. That means Trent gets more photos than you. Ask and ye shall be given.
Here’s an example of a photo most car drivers would not recognize as blog-worthy, nor would they turn around, go back and stand on top of their vehicle to get this picture. I don’t have a caption for it, but I’d like to say to those with plans to invade the USA. This isn’t the army tank park. This is just a tractor dealership. One dealership. And I could only fit about a quarter of the tractors into this one picture.
ADDENDUM
All backup copies are created including off-site storage. The inclusion of a daily photo in the blog, now an institution, has drastically increased storage requirements. There is no filing system for these photos, either, except roughly by month and year. And we are talking a lot of photos to get the pretty ones you see here. Changing to DVD just made it even more of a tiresome process. Remind me to see if there is anything better on the market (in either capacity or format) once I return.
Yet, see what a creature of habit I am? The major backup of the blog is technically unnecessary as they are published on the Internet. Probably could not be completely erased if I wanted to. But I don’t trust the permanence of even the Internet. I’m still using Windows which has a terrible backup procedure. DOS worked better for keeping files unique.
