Week 26 - Hadley to North Myrtle Beach

Well, twenty-six weeks, so it's been half a year since I started on this adventure! I decided to head south to ride out the remaining cold weather and test out all my new gear, then pass back through North Carolina for a resupply and continue north in a counterclockwise circle around the country. On Sunday I did the last bit of packing and cleaning in the early morning light and carted my baggage out to the driveway to load onto Punkin. Luckily it all fit and seemed pretty well balanced. My mom saw me off, as I wobbled away with temporarily out-of-balance wheels and the unfamiliar load, into a cold fog so thick it was almost like fine rain. I stopped in Pittsboro to fill up Punkin and myself with our hydrocarbons of choice, lubricated and adjusted the chain, and headed off towards South Carolina. Just north of Sanford I suddenly ran into a wall of tropical air, the most palpable experience of a warm front I've ever had, and the day began to get nicer. There were buffeting winds and dramatic cumulus clouds, and as the sun showed itself more and more I kept stopping to take off more jackets and even changed into the summer gloves I hadn't worn for many months.

I was riding on four lane highways for the first part of the trip, and Punkin seemed to have a bit more power than usual and was easily holding speeds around 45mph. After 40 miles I stopped to look over the bike and make sure everything was in good order and saw that I'd never released the choke after I started it! When I took the choke off, the engine was clearly weaker, and from this I inferred that the carburetor was running too lean (too little gas for the amount of air). I pulled over at a gas station, took apart the throttle, and raised the needle as far as it would go to get a richer mix (more gas). The power came back even stronger without the air being restricted by the choke, and I felt pretty proud of myself for having learned enough to do such a thing. A few months ago, tuning a carburetor seemed like it would require some kind of advanced wizardry, but now I can see that it's a lot like getting a wood stove or a campfire to burn right. After the adjustment, it felt like I might be getting almost up to 50mph at full throttle, but it was hard to tell since there's something wrong with the speedometer that makes it swing wildly at high speeds.

I got tired of fast roads pretty quickly and rerouted to take a rural detour around Fayetteville, riding some very pretty miles on Route 211 before being forced back onto the big roads as I approached the coast. There were still hours of daylight left when I rode into North Myrtle Beach through the six-lane strip malls of Route 17. My plan was to visit my friends the M-S family, and I found their address on a quiet, tree-lined back street just a block away from the strip. Their house was charming, a two-story Oregon cabin with a 12-pitch roof and weathered wooden siding. I met the M-S family back when they were enthusiastic early supporters of HW's school, and later their oldest son UM became a sort of intern at my office, where he came to practice software development and absorb the culture around it (or at least our version of it).

I'll give a very brief sketch of the M-S family. TM is a very talkative and fussy Italian, passionate but not taking himself too seriously. His wife LS is the essential yin to his yang: easygoing and incredibly tolerant and nurturing. They have three sons. UM (age 16) is a sort of mathematical monk: jogging, studying linear algebra with more self-discipline than most people have but less than he'd like, and subsisting largely on apples and peanut butter. DM (age 11), is writing speculative fiction and alternates between bursts of physical activity and stretches of computer games and graphic novels. EM (age nearly-6) is a hell-raising pain in the ass but makes up for it by being impossibly adorable.

TM and UM came out to give me a warm welcome, surprised at the smallness of my motorcycle and the largeness of my luggage. They offered me UM's room to stay in but I preferred to set up my tent in the yard and have my own space. Besides, the backyard was a real oasis, with towering trees and fantastic landscaping that TM's been doing on a shoestring budget for the last several years. He's built a waterfall, a koi pond, and a large natural swimming pool, and although it's still a work in progress, it's already quite lovely. They helped me set up my tent, and TM even gave me some pieces of dumpster-dived white plush carpet, which added a real touch of luxury to the place. When LS got home from work, they fed me a nice meal and the grownups stayed up late catching up over wine. TM told some stories of his motorcycling days, when he once rode his Vespa across the Alps and full throttle down the white lines on the German Autobahns, and made it all the way to the Netherlands and most of the way back before his engine gave up. See, there are people even more nuts than me!

Monday morning was very warm and clear. LS made an incredible breakfast of home-grown microgreen salad topped with garlic, scrambled eggs, and salsa, which I ate every morning but one and didn't come even close to getting tired of. And the other morning was oatmeal, which I'm pretty devoted to as you may know. After breakfast I worked happily on the back deck overlooking the pond and absorbed the sunshine. In the afternoon rain swept in suddenly, which sent me inside but not the two younger boys. DM dove into the cold pond and swam around while EM, who was initially upset that the water was too cold for him, found an outlet in shooting a squirt gun at his older brother, who defended himself with a large umbrella. After the rain passed I took a walk and saw a plane take off from the nearby air strip and an artificial volcano erupting (with a burst of propane, the mini-golf course below was safe). A couple nights before I had a very vivid dream about a specific salad (I must have been needing some nutrients), so I walked to the grocery store, bought ingredients for it, and chopped them with my Chinese chef knife, which I debated about taking on the trip but is proving nice to have. After dinner I crashed LS's weekly zoom meeting with my friends SE and TB in Montana, and we had a great conversation about UFOs, government propaganda, and other counter-cultural themes.

I soon slipped into the rhythm of life in the M-S household, quiet moments alternating with mayhem, a varied and nutritious diet, two campfires in the yard, and some great conversations about everything from relationships to artificial intelligence. There was never a dull moment, although sometimes the "entertainment" was a screaming child, and I began to realize that my recent observations about my mental state indoors versus outdoors may not be so much about built spaces versus natural spaces as about stimulating spaces versus boring ones. The fact is that for the past six months almost all my indoor time was spent alone, and most of my socializing was outdoors (the garage being a notable exception). But anyway, even on a rainy day the M-S household was an engaging place to be, and I felt a sense of deep well-being moving through my body from being embedded in family life with people I care about.

There were some activities too. I helped out a little with cooking and maintenance work on the pond's pumping system. We had a couple of campfires out in the yard, and took a field trip to visit the Meher Spiritual Center and walk around its 500-acres of beautiful maritime forest. It's the largest center dedicated to Meher Baba in the West. LS is a second-generation follower and TM a first-generation follower of Meher Baba, they met when they were both on pilgrimage in India. I found it a charming place, and an interesting layout because the only large building only seats about a hundred people, and the rest are cabins of various sizes, shared kitchens, and a rec room. Many of the buildings were moved there because of a lumber shortage when the center was being built after World War II, which gives the place a charming variety of styles, fusing bungalows with log cabins and tobacco barns. Ordinarily pilgrims can stay there for $22.50 a night and sort of craft their own retreat, there are none of the usual scheduled activities, yoga classes, weekly services, etc. I could definitely see myself taking a retreat there someday, once the lockdowns are over. But however much I tried to extend it by getting up early and staying up late, the week eventually came to an end, and it was with mixed feelings that I prepared to hit the road again for another move south. I promised to stop there again on my way north, and on Saturday morning, topped up with hugs and yet another fantastic breakfast, I was off.

Things I Learned

• South Carolina doesn't require motorcycle helmets, which I inferred as I crossed the border and started seeing more and more Harley riders with gray hair streaming in the breeze.
• Topolino is a series of comics written in Italian that started in 1932 as an unlicensed use of the Mickey Mouse character but turned into a sort of Italian branch of Disney. Some of the stories have been translated back into English for the American market.
• An inner pocket of my new raincoat has a medal of Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers, sewn into it. What a nice touch.

Wonderful Things

• Crossing a windy bridge over the intracoastal waterway. This is always the exciting moment when I feel like I've really arrived at the coast.
• Seeing palmettos, which always make me feel like I've really gone somewhere that's not quite like home.
• Sitting in the sun and petting a long-haired orange cat named Jax from the rescue next door.
• Seeing the fleeing backside of a cat I surprised in my tent, and then touching the warm imprint it had made on my sleeping bag.
• Getting a new down sleeping bag with the zipperless design I've grown to love. So cozy!