XC 1X2

Today was exciting. My first day heading West, a definitive homeward trajectory. Technically, I've always been heading home in that Willy Wonka 'The only way outward is onward" sense. Another high-humidity scorcher. The morning weather check said that if I got going early and kept a good pace, temperatures would remain roughly level throughout the day at a crispy 85. I did not wake up early, I did not keep a good pace. The first half of my day took three hours and landed me in Albany for lunch. I settled on The Betty Boop Diner. Albany did not appear to have much in the way of good food. I figured if the food would be crappy, it should at least be iconic. During this stop, which was just as much about rehydrating and regaining electrolytes as it was about eating lunch, I finally sorted out my maintenance issue. My high school friend Daniel is coming to Michigan for the week starting Saturday. We've turned wrenches before so it was a no brainer to come to his house. I m...

It started like any other day... Evan requested that I start this post with that sentence, which is actually quite abnormal. He rarely (never) makes requests or suggestions regarding what I write. We walked to a local grocery store for breakfast which initially I thought was a nursery. The outside was full of plants for sale, pots, and assorted gardening accoutrements. We each selected empenadas from the cold case, word was that these were made by a local legend empenada lady, I'm always in the mood for a meal like that. While breakfast heated up, we played a board game. I would have won were it not for Evan noticing that our food was warm suspiciously close to the time I pulled ahead. This was in no small part due to the fact that he allowed me to accidentally knock over blocks without losing points. Beginner's privilege. After breakfast, which was phenomenal, I got into some planning. I am getting up to the next service interval on this bike which means that I have to estimat...

Last day in Amagansett. I woke up to Zach's alarm prompting him out of bed. We said our goodbyes and I rose shortly thereafter. I cleaned the room and packed my things. I had booked a ferry ticket for the afternoon so I had a considerable amount of time to wrap up at the house. Once I finished my laundry and gave up on packing my bags effectively, I wished Matt and Avery farewell and set out. It was a short hour and a half journey to Orient Point. Long Island splits off at the east end into two 'forks'. I was ten miles from the tip of the south fork and I had to get to tip the north fork for my ferry. This was an exciting journey. I had never taken my own vehicle on a ferry before, let alone a motorcycle. This excitement helped to bring me there early, so early in fact that I got put on an earlier ferry! That means less time waiting and more time in Boston. I grabbed lunch aboard and sat in the blissfully air conditioned cabin. On my way out a stranger in noticed my Califor...

Good morning, Goodbye. The first car of four left at ten. Jeremy, on his own, left not long after. The remainder of us went out for a bagel breakfast at eleven. Nourishment, nap, chat. Ollie and Heather left at around three. Who even knows what time really, today ebbed along gently. Julia and Avery went off to work leaving Matt, Zach, and I at home. I adjusted my suspension, Zach enjoyed a puff, and Matt gamed. We went off to the Montauk Light House, the easternmost point in Long Island, by way of the Old Montauk Highway. A road known locally for its many fun hills. We walked the shore and grabbed a snack of fried pickles at a nearby restaurant. How people get around in Long Island Back at the house we cleaned and prepped dinner. Lounging around and listening to the surf made us long for the ocean so we took a nighttime beach walk. Sleepy, the eyelids are heavy.

My hopes for a slow rise from my slumber were dashed by two things. The skylight glowing brightly in the morning sun and the party group chat doing the same. Today was to have a beach morning, nothing was to stop it. We were roused from our semi-catatonic states at nine to hustle out the door for the beach. A little over an hour later, we made it out the door. Doing anything with a group this large can feel a bit like herding cats. A morning spent relaxing hungover in the sand was a pleasant way to start the day. On the way back to the house I stopped in an old restored coastie station and listened to the docents tell stories of yore's goings-on. Life-saving at sea was a perilous process back in the bad old days. At least they gave you a cool house with a crow's nest. Back at the house and the group fired up the grill while I set off for the nearby town of Sag Harbor. I popped in for lunch and to wander around. In general, I have not been spending much time alone and this was a...

Odd writing day one in the title of this when I've been here for three days already. Woke up and scoured the house for tea making supplies. I rustled up a pot, kettle, and teacups. Threw a service together and asked if any of the already awake folks were interested. After morning tea Zach, Abby, Sam, and I went to a local bakery for tasty baked goods and a second round of caffeination. We took some time to wander around the town for a bit. We hit a hardware store for sweatshirts (the weather has been grayer than many expected) and checked out the local shops. In one word: expensive. brekkie Avery got off work in time for lunch and we celebrated by going to a local deli for sandwiches. Mussolini's Revenge (a tasty Italian sub) gave me sustenance as we carried out the rest of our errands. Sides from a fish market and cheese from the cheese shop. Back to the house to relax. Avery and I sat outside, enjoying the fresh air and tasty libations. When dinner time rolled around, a...

My last day in Philly, but for real this time. Today was slow and social. I spent the morning with Ethan and we talked until Max popped in. My shoes are beginning to fall apart on me so I decided that it was time to shop for new ones. We tried to make some bad things in the Converse online custom shoe builder. There are a lot of horrible shoes you can make with that. Once Ethan got off work we migrated to the Love City beer garden and had our last libation together. A sprint to a Venezuelan joint nearby for a last meal was an excelent cap on that beer. I hopped on a city bike and started pounding the pavement. I had to get to Chestnut and 31st from the restaurant in fifteen minutes. A distance of about two miles and a half miles. Marathon cyclist mode: activate. I made it to the car with Avery's friends just as they were packing in the bags of someone else that they were picking up. I piled in for the four hour ride back to Amagansett. The gals in the car are all friends of Avery f...

It's single time. Woke up and plotted a course for Jackson's house. A week or so ago, we recorded a single at his house and we have been hammering it out over the phone ever since. As I'm back in town, we decided that it was time to wrap it up. We mixed for two hours and took a break, walking to his landlord's office to review security camera footage for clues as to who hit hit his car early that morning. On a side note, if anyone in the Philadelphia area sees a 2017 or newer white Honda accord with fresh scratches on it, Jackson and the two other neighbors who were hit would like a word with the driver. We migrated to Green Eggs Cafe for an early single release party. Over a drink he told me stories of his observations in the protests and riots of the previous summer. It was clearly a wild time. We walked back and came up with a unique idea: a special mix of the song just for skating. We wrapped up both mixes and submitted them for distribution. It is so exciting to ac...

A cafe racer is a type of motorbike popularized in Europe in the 1960s. Young people would take their motorbikes and strip them down, removing everything that was not needed to get them from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Seats were cut down, bars were lowered to give a racier position, excess lighting and bodywork was removed. These people would blast through their cities, pounding the pavement from cafe to cafe as quickly as possible. Ergo the name. This is a style of bike that persists even today all over the world. Today, I ate breakfast at a small cafe in East Hampton. After finishing my croissant and tea (they put a teabag in an infuser basket, that confused me) I phoned back to Avery who was still asleep when I left the house for breakfast. It's her birthday, I can't allow her to starve. The order was simple, a croissant and iced coffee. You ever carry iced coffee on a motorbike? Cafe racer. Luckily I was planning to wash all of my gear that day anyway so I p...

Breakfast with the Rob and Carolyn. This was the second morning in a row where I ate shakshuka, definitely not a problem. It's delicious and everyone makes it a little different. I think a person could easily subside on the stuff and not get bored. There is so much variety. The sauce, the spice mix, what you add to it, how you cook the eggs, it can always be tweaked. After suiting up I was greeted with a surprise, the day was supposed to be a scorcher but was instead just the typical east coast summer hot n' humid, if a little early in the year. What's more was that as I went east, further out on Long Island and into the Atlantic, it was to get cooler still. Traffic on the Long Island Expressway was merciful and the journey was easy until the Hamptons traffic started to bog me town on the congested two lane roads. Luckily, the weather was cool enough to keep me from being miserable and the low speeds enabled me to chat on the phone with my grandparents. Always a welcome div...

I've been telling myself for an age now that I need to get back into the routine of posting at night when I go to bed. For the last week or two, my days seem to flow in a way more conducive to posting on the next day. This isn't good for my writing as is pushes the limits of my memory. It also forces a 'to do' item to hang over me all day. Ben, Carla, and I walked to grab breakfast at ten. The restaurant took our name and phone number and informed us that we would be seated no earlier than eleven. This suited us just fine as we were in no rush and in all the times I had been to Nyack I had never in fact looked around. Ben walked Carla and I around and told us about the history of his village. It still weirds me out to think that there are villages in the United States. I also learned the difference between The Nyacks, Nyack, and Central Nyack. Don't confuse them in front of the locals. By half past eleven Carla realized that something had gone wrong and we walked ba...

I woke up to my alarm blaring at me. A peek at my phone revealed that breakfast was cancelled. A bleary-eyed holler at Ethan from his couch to alert him of the same and back to bed. I packed the new bags and set off to Emma's house where Arielle had my camera. After, that off to Hoboken. I met my friend Max, an old Drexel friend at his place where we made the most of a short amount of time together. Between my slow start and his girlfriend's demand of a day for just the two of them, it left us precious little time. We caught up as best we could. Four years in two hours, such is life. Tony Boloney's Real Eyetalien Food The plan from there was to head into New York City to meet up with a friend. Said friend (who shall go unnamed) was being flaky which resigned me to Max's apartment for a few hours while I plotted my next move. A brief nap and I went in. The Holland Tunnel is commonly called horrible (harrable in the local parlance). I would especially not recommend it on ...

Arielle and I took the bikes out on our shortest adventure yet! The Cape Henlopen State Park visitor center. Her sister Jess works there part time explaining the local ecology to nonlocal humans. Jess took us through all of the exhibits with a special attention to detail and wasted no time in chiding me for my use of flash photography in the exhibits. I would like to apologize to the horseshoe crab I blinded. This creature has sensitive eyes, the horseshoe crab does as well We rode the entirety of the park's bike loop which brought us back to the nature center just in time to bike home with Jess. From there, a waiting game. The employed among us finished their week's work and we set off back to Philadelphia. On arrival at Ethan's I tore open my new luggage which had arrived while I was out of town. Something had to be done about the old bags which have now begun to tear and were now without their waterproof coverings. I fitted the new ones, held my breath, and found that th...

Vacation homes are a curious thing. They are always stocked with mysteries. A fridge full of expired condiments and wine is to be expected. Because they are bought and sold with furnishings, the people who own them typically have only a general idea of what lives in their cabinets. This leads to everyone having a guest's idea of what is in the home. This brings us to a beach house rule, thou shalt not leave unless you need critical supplies. Eyeballing the cheese in the fridge, Arielle and I set out cycling for crackers. Critical supplies. We got home, made a cheese platter and sat on the deck. Right when we got comfortable, her dad facetimed us from the roof deck with an invitation and a reminder that happy hour was nigh. Not being one to brush aside a reminder for a gin and tonic, we set up the spiral staircase with the beloved cheese platter to watch the water from the highest point in the house. From left to right: Marcel, Arfan, Arielle, cheese platter, Steve After dinner, we ...

Slow starts are becoming the routine now. I haven't traveled on the bike in over a week. My feet are starting to itch. On the way here I had a critical issue. My bags, which had already been giving me trouble, have begun to tear. I think it's time to put them to rest. The replacements will be shipped to Philly and they should beat me there. Arielle and I took our morning tea with her sisters on the back patio overlooking the water. Life stinks, I know. Once we determined that everyone else had resigned themselves to being productive while the sun was up, Arielle and I began to pump up bicycle tires and hit the road. Destination: Giant for Berger cookies and TBD for Lunch. We began our trek which quickly became painful for me. I had selected a bike with a woman's seat. Men's and women's bike seats differ in design because men's and women's hips are different. To put it frankly, a man on a woman's saddle will find that the raised front of the seat will int...

Another slow day in Kennet. I'm thankful for that. Arielle and I made use of the tea and teapot we purchased on the previous day. She started work late, on west coast time, and I began to pour my brain into the internet. She and her mother left to go visit her grandfather which left me at home alone until Cath got back from her first day at her new job. Arfan, now her coworker, connected her with the gig which happens to be about ten minutes from her parents' house. The timing was also a happy accident. Today was a company luncheon, the first day everyone had been together since the start of the pandemic. It was a great opportunity for her to meet her new coworkers and enjoy a full paid half day. Arielle and her mother came home and a brilliant suggestion was floated, WFH (Work From Hot tub). We suited up and I was greeted with a familiar sight, they had the same model that John and I soaked in back Raleigh way. Dinner outside, a change of clothes, and into the car. We went off...

I only grew up with one sister so I'm not used to the kind of shenanigans that occur when you have multiple of them growing up in the same house at the same time. I looked particularly foolish as I was the only one out of the four of us who has missed the coordinated matching floral jumpsuit memo. Downtown Kennet Square has many small details that play to the town's status as the mushroom capital of the world. Bike racks with detailed mushroom ironwork, shops with mushroom memorabilia, the scent of feces softly wafting through the air. Y'know, the little things. We went out in search of an unforgettable mushroom luncheon. We settled on an Italian restaurant and ordered one of every mushroom heavy item on the menu. Mushroom soup, mushroom gratin, mushroom spinach ravioli, and mushroom risotto. Unfortunately even Kenneters have not figured out a way to eat mushrooms for desert so after a delicious meal we wandered to a local Michoacana for ice cream by way of a tea shop. Squa...

And on the last day... The morning had a vital agenda item. Food. I woke up tired and hungry but with a promising offer of food and conversation from my fiend Sadie. Sadie works at an esteemed sandwich shop in The Gayborhood. I walked over. She said hello, thrusted a sandwich at me, and attempted to chat in between helping customers. I thought they were busy for a Sunday. She said that insanity was situation normal at this shop and that we should meet up after work. I walked to a nearby park to enjoy the tasty live giving treat and discovered that she had put the name of the orderer as Shell, an old freshman year nickname of mine. That took me back. Halfway through my sandwich Max buzzed through the park on a bicycle. It feels good to know enough people in a place to be seeing them on accident. A chat and he was back on his way to a film shoot. I walked to Dilworth Park, to see Arielle skate at the pop up roller rink there. Philly is built up on a grid with city hall set in the center....

 I seem to be doing these recovery days wrong. Oopsie. Ethan and I prepped his apartment for his birthday tonight. This is a festival in two parts and part two was assumed to be in his living room. This mainly entailed a great deal of sweeping and the disposal of a litany of beer bottles, seltzer cans, and old train tickets. Following this, I took my motorcycle around the city and reunited people with the things they had left in Ethan's apartment. Philadelphia is a horrible city for a motorcycle. This is an ebike city. A motorcycle leaves you trapped like a car here and there is not enough room to shoot for gaps without riding on the sidewalk or through closed off construction zones. Maybe the locals can pull it off but not me. I asked a man on a Ducatti if people lanesplit here, "We respect the lane boundaries." Lame. On an ebike, you can get away with nonsense like sidewalk riding and running reds. That's the way to get around here. zip zip. I stopped off at Jackson...

After all the activity of the last few days, a rest day was in order. No cavings to go out on Friday night. A long morning on the couch led into a lunch expedition to Reading Terminal Market. A market in what was at the time, a Reading Railroad terminal. The railroad is long gone but the tasty food remains. A reuben and Basset's ice cream to topped us off. Hunting That's it. We lounged around for the rest of the day drinking rum and caipirinhas. Pure relaxation. On to tomorrow.

A morning bike ride with Max was the catalyst for not carrying a camera on me today. It's hard enough to push one of those heavy rental bikes around as is. I didn't need a camera bugging me down more. We rode around the city for an hour or two and made it to Chris' house for a water and a rest. As it turned out, he had a bicycle there that needed assembly. Together it went. Use it in good health. The evening engaging in a proud local tradition of public intoxication. Max and I walked to Jackson's and then to Philly's new rail park (a la High Line) by way of the beer store. Ethan was there and we worked our way through our packs and down to a BYOB dim sum joint in Chinatown. Back to the apartment and three more rolled in. Back out we all went to find a still-open bar at midnight. God bless the staff of Oscar's. We grabbed a drink and observed the miscreants who came in for libations. An odd mix of twenty year olds looking for a lax bouncer, sixty year olds lookin...

Visiting Philadelphia for me feels distinctly like taking an old pair of shoes out of the closet and slipping them on. Smelly, worn, and a good fit with lots of memories. Another late start and I grabbed lunch at a Malaysian restaurant with my friend Sami. Malay food is dear to my heart. It's what my grandmother's family cooks and it is almost impossible to get outside of a home kitchen. Stumbling into a place with mei goreng on the menu was a real treat. Sami had never tried it either so it was a natural fit. We wandered the old city, passing a farmer's market and caught up on our last year. I said goodbye at the restaurant she tends bar at and continued south to my friend Max's house. We talked lockdown (a fashionable topic these days) and he mentioned he was having troubles with his bicycle. Fixing a bike for a can of PBR was definitely a peak ridiculous moment of the trip. Our friend Chris popped in and after some more gabbing we walked north to Sami's work ...

So many years on, I think I have more close friends in Philadelphia than I do in Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara combined. I lived in Philly on and off for a little over a year. Between TO and SB it must have been around twenty. People scatter funny I guess. As a consequence of the high concentration of friendly people in the area, yesterday I partook in a (nearly) all-beer diet. That contributed to posting in the morning instead of the evening. I anticipate this occurring more regularly. Ethan and I got a late start. Me more so than him, he's a working man and I'm a vagabond. We carried in late breakfast (brunch? lunch?) from a local cafe and I set out. A quick walk and I was at my friend Jackson's house. Jackson, another school friend, lived the pandemic life to the fullest over the last year. Before lockdown started he was tending bar at a local dive. Once that became outlawed he switched from dives to endives. Well, carrots actually. He worked on a farm for a while but ...

My last day in Deale was a nice and slow one. I've set more alarms there than anywhere else on this trip and I was glad to forgo them this morning. I took my time, slept in, made a cup of tea, ate more of Janie's delicious banana bread, and listened to the news while I packed. I checked out and hit the road, Annapolis-bound. Today was going to be a short day. I got to Annapolis swiftly for my first stop, sitting in a cafe overlooking the harbor with my Aunt Phyl and Uncle Jeff. After a rest to cool off and watch the tourists attempt to navigate the local construction, it was time to set off. Probably the only picture someone else has taken of me on this trip Next stop was Baltimore to meet up with one of my college fiends from my first alma matter. Can you call it an alma matter if you didn't finish? Es and I met at WKDU, the radio station on campus. After seven years and three colleges of undergrad, this was the only club I joined. No regrets there. I had a marvelous time ...

Any good party deserves a good hangover brunch. The remaining family streamed in to my Uncle Dan's house for one last hurrah together. A party in Maryland would not be a party in Maryland without a good old fashioned crab feast. Crabs are in short supply this season but that was no problem here. My Uncle knows a guy, "I tell him what I need and he gets it for me." What may have been as much as a bushel of crabs were steamed and brought down to the garage for consumption. Locally, this is called picking a crab. This process involves crab mallets, plastic wrap, and beer. The bugs at hand are the local Baltimore Blues, so named for the color when they come out of the water. The picking routine begins with a nod to local architecture (lift the Washington Monument shaped 'apron' on the underside) and lots of hungry cracking noises. Blues are known for their flavor and their size. The taste is delicious but they are small enough to make you work for it. The process of p...

I woke up early today to pursue Annapolis with my parents. We went to breakfast where my mother and father made corresponding menu observations. You cannot get good, fresh sourdough on the east coast. You cannot get good, fresh rye on the west coast. Comme ci comme ca. Life gives and takes. My father and I walked to a barber shop to check off a to-do item that had been sitting on our list for some time, a wet shave. My only regret was that by the time I hit the chair, I had not noticed that the beers waiting patrons were drinking were coming from a fridge in the back. True courtesy from the establishment. We obtained our shaves, picked up gifts for the newlyweds, and went back to Deale. Brick Alley Enthusiasm A brief recharge at the hotel and it was time for the wedding. Just a marvelous evening. Positivity in the air and a pleasure to bask in the glow of the happiness. Today was hot but nobody was about to let that get in the way of celebrating. One big happy family.

House Call (n), visiting the final resting places of the dearly departed. Today I woke up early to do something that I would describe not as fun but as important and a good experience. My father and I traveled with my Grandparents to three different cemeteries around Baltimore to visit graves. This is something I had not done before. There is no other city that I have been to where my family has managed to grow roots deep enough to have tombstones. The first cemetery was in West Baltimore. Theres a funny thing about old cemeteries. They are all built just outside of town and over time, town creeps out to them. Every place we visited was, at their foundation, so far removed from town that it was hard to imagine a Baltimore that would surround it. Of course, there were houses around all of them. Time passes mercilessly. The cemetery was clean, quiet and peaceful. Almost the picture-perfect image of whaat a cemetery should look like. We said kaddish for my gre...

I was an unexcited camper this morning. A good night's sleep and warm hospitality can only do so much to combat the prospect of a rainy ride. It looked like the rain was going to be beatable. If I hustled I could get in front of the clouds as they formed over South Raleigh.  The winds would blow them north by northeast, the same direction I was traveling. I had a final drink of water, ate some breakfast, aired up my tires, and hit the road. Two Geese and a Shadow Nothing was coming down as I left, but the sky was looking quite unhappy. About ten minutes later it began to rain. It was exciting to think that I was racing a cloud. Almost like flying in a sense. After the rain subsided my day began to get slightly more annoying. I would like to apologize to the great state of North Carolina for littering. I lost my tail bag's rain cover somewhere on route one, probably around Henderson. If you see it DM me for my address. I would like to apologize to the great state of Virginia for...

About two weeks ago I posted a photo from my trip on the Moto Guzzi subreddit and offered up the link to this blog to share my adventures with anyone else who may have been interested. I received the following message... "I've ridden 10 different Guzzis since 1986, I guess that is an addiction LOL. Please include me in your blog subscription list, I would enjoy that. I am in Raleigh, NC so look me up if you get over here, not sure how you are making it to MD. Be safe and if you haven't already, check out Wildguzzi.com they will help you out if you need it. Ride safely! John" I sent John the link, thanked him for his goodwill, and promised that as I got closer to Raleigh that I would be in touch. As I got closer to Raleigh, I began to ask myself if it made sense to crash with a stranger from the internet. I began to ask myself questions like about who this person was and how I was supposed to decide if I could trust him? I followed it up with one more, "What would...