A post with a guarantee

As many of you who read this blog with any regularity know, I ride a motorcycle (hnngh). I even fancy myself a long distance rider. I'd been looking for an excuse to get out of the house recently when an invitation to attend a seminar in Atlanta turned up. Faced with an impending layoff, I've been studying internet marketing pretty intensely for the past month or three, and the conference was about internet marketing! Subject: perfect; timing: perfect.

You readers might also know that I'm a member of the Iron Butt Association, and I'm sure you all know by now that I'm from Minnesota, where the have real winters, not the puny late fall that's the best Delaware can boast.

It took a little planning—

• Get a bike—check. I've had my 1984 BMW R100RT touring bike for about year and a half. 
  
• Get permission from the wife—check. She enthusiastically supported the idea, even. She said it would be like taking a 3-year old's favorite toy if she didn't let me go
  
• Check the gear—check. Especially the electric gloves and jacket liner.
  
• Put a new tire on the front—check. Been sitting in the garage for a couple months now anyway.
  
• Visit Google maps and verify the route—check. Looked like I could do it without needing a map, even. Take 95 to 85, stay on 85 till I came to it.
  
• Hope for no ice on the roads—check. What can I say? Weather was good when I left, cleared up before I got back.

 I hit the road about 6:30 Thursday morning. I had loaded up the bike the day before and about all I had to do was suit up and head out. Getting from bed to bike still took longer than I expected. But the roads were clear, and traffic through Baltimore and DC was fast and not too heavy. I stopped for a carbo-grease breakfast at the end of the first tank of gas, somewhat over 200 miles down the road, at an obscure interchange in the very rural depths of Virginia. It reminded me why I hadn't eaten at a Waffle House since my last experience at one ten years ago. The service was so bad it was comical. One example: after the waitress realized I was there—and didn't have the menu memorized, she started to hand me one, then leaned back to do something else, keeping the menu just out of my reach! We all had a good laugh...

Apparently the gas I got there wasn't very good either. The bottom half of that and the next tankful of gas caused enough coughing and sputtering to make me nervous. Except for that, the bike ran like it was having as good a time as I was. Traffic the whole way down was smooth and fast. Um, almost as fast as I was. It was hard to keep the bike below 80, and once I accidentally hit the 90's. The bike still had plenty of oomph left. Smooth as glass, too, which was why it was hard to keep the speed down—no warnings like shakiness or hitting the top of the throttle. We should all have such problems, huh? I still don't know how fast the bike will go.

Virginia's finest were definitely in evidence; in MD, SC, NC, and GA much less so. I saw several very unmarked cars. One was a hybrid, one an SUV. They both had someone stopped. None of them paid any attention to me, so I got no performance awards, though I suppose you could say I deserved one.

Weather was good except for some rain from Greenville to Atlanta. 

Thank you, Lord, for Atlanta's HOV lane! Motorcycles qualify, and I cruised straight to the hotel. The roads by the airport were not what I expected, but I lucked out and rode straight to my destination. 759.5 miles, 12.5 hours counting the, er, breakfast.

Trip home was about the same, only in reverse. I let Val talk me into staying at a no-name motel through the deepest part of the night. It got me home later, but I went through DC and Baltimore at mid-day, so the traffice wasn't bad—only one slowdown for some construction. Got home right at 3 in the afternoon.

Lessons: I need a bit more warmth for my feet when the temp hits the mid 20's. My gear works down to there, too, if I wear all of it. The rain suit makes about a ten-degree difference in warmth. The BMW jugs did a lot toward keeping my feet warm.

What about the conference? Well worth the trip. Three high-density days of 90-minute lectures and workshops. Plenty of networking. Good content. I feel ready to move ahead!

Confidential to those reading this who were at the conference: My first attempt at a sales letter worked, didn't it? Thank you to Mr. X, who's address I don't have, so he won't see it unless someone forwards the sales letter to him. And I hope you leave a comment even if I fulfilled my guarantee.