Everyday Risks
Today is the first morning of our Utah motorcycle ride. We picked up Chris and Ann at the airport on Saturday night and began our journey into the event by finding that one of their three bags got lost. San Diego airport, technically named Lindbergh Field in honor of Charles Lindbergh, who flew the Atlantic Ocean on a solo flight 95 years ago this month, was the venue. That was considered an amazing risk in those days, hence the decision by the city fathers of San Diego to name their city airport after him. It remains one of the most central urban airports in America with a single runway of 9,401 feet that brings you down with buildings seemingly on your left shoulder in an almost eyrie landing. Like all airports these days, they manage the traffic patterns of the cars coming to pick up arriving passengers almost as actively as the flight controllers manage the airspace. We are told to either go to the cell phone lot or keep circling until our passengers have emerged with their bags whereupon you are allowed to momentarily pull over to load them and are then shooed away to make room. When you start to load your passengers with the expectation that the last bag will be out in a moment you risk inciting the traffic manager’s wrath with your open trunk and existing baggage, giving you only a moment’s grace before they threaten you to either restart your circling or take a parking ticket. Once Chris determined that the bag with his underwear and such was lost, we loaded up and beelined it for the nearest Target to give him some replacement Jockeys and a toothbrush to get him through the lost luggage process of the next few days. Problem was that we were departing for the wilds of Utah on Sunday morning, so the bag would need to give chase across the desert. One wonders how airlines ever make money when they need to fix their mistakes for travelers in such personalized manner. Chris and I have a bet as to when the bag will reach him in Moab. No surprise, I took the under and Chris thought he would likely see his bag when the sun, the earth and moon were in perfect alignment at best.
It so happens that there is, indeed, a full lunar eclipse scheduled for tonight in the Western U.S., so I am fully expecting to win my bet. Chris is not so amused as he tugs at his bargain u-trow and does his Rain Man impersonation saying “Target Sucks”. We loaded up the trailer and made our 8am departure on Sunday per plan, heading on the slab up to Vegas and into Polygamy-Central in Colorado City and Kanab, Utah. I had already gone through the rigors of getting the trailer loaded and attached, recognizing after the fact, that reversing that order and attaching before loading makes the trailer hitch manipulation much easier. Once again I had problems getting the ball hitch properly seated, but with a quick FaceTime call with my trailer guru, Kevin, I got everything locked down enough so that the trailer would not go sailing past me at some future stopping point on the journey. 100% of my motorcycle inventory is lodged in that trailer with two big ratchet tie-downs securing them each in place. I think I did the ratchets correctly, but that is yet another risk that time will tell for sure. So far so good on the trailer risk.
In the late afternoon of our forced march to Page, Utah where we would be meeting Steve and Maggie for dinner on Lake Powell, I had my next travel risk decision. We were an hour or two out of Page with only one wide-spot in the Road Town left to get gas. I had 136 miles of gas range according to my electronics and 90 miles to the hotel. Does one stop for gas and risk less time to prepare for the dinner gathering or does one get gas and avoid the stranded-in-the-desert risk. I thought it was worth putting on the table for a group decision and was immediately hailed as an idiot for thinking we should do anything but stop for gas. I liken that risk as being like the risk of standing for democracy versus autocracy in 2022. We all understand that autocracy is an expedient, and that democracy is theoretically better, but that with democracy comes added effort and burden. I thought it was worth the risk to call for the referendum and was not so richly rewarded by my passengers ganging up on me and calling me a dope for imagining that there was any value at all in a democratic process when we were staring at a 100 degree desert. Here I was, thinking I was Volodymyr Zelenskyy, when I was made to feel like idiot Hunter Biden who obviously had self-interested ulterior motives. Sometimes you can’t win, right Brandon?
This morning I am up early, as is my habit, and I have decided to ride Monument Valley. This requires me to take the two motorcycles out of the trailer. I loaded them myself and I think I can unload them myself, but there is risk in the maneuver if you do not have a spotter to keep you from tipping over. The smart money play is to wait for Chris, but that entails getting someone less early riser in lifestyle to be there on a timely basis and once again risk being name-called for being a pedantic early-rising pansy who can’t unload a motorcycle on his own. In other words, do I take the manly risk of unloading solo or wait patiently for my spotter? What would Lindy do? That SOB would just do it in the best of Nike manner, right? So, as soon as I finish this story, I am down at the trailer and I am getting the unloading process in gear. If Chris gets there, so be it. If I drop one of the bikes (likely to be my preferred big GSA rather than my cute little R-Nine-T that Chris is scheduled to ride), I just suck it up and live with the dented roll bar and the scraped leg. Some risks a man just has to take. I’m sure I will be called an idiot again if I gauge this badly, but so be it.
While killing time this morning, I happened upon an article about how some foundation (probably funded by the property and casualty insurance industry) has come up with an algorithm to determine the wildfire risk of every single property in America. I tested the system out by putting in my address since we all worry about wildfire risk out in my neck of the high chaparral. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my home is rated a 2 for Minor Risk on a 5-point scale. That was an unexpected bonus piece of news for someone who got kicked out of Chubb insurance this year for having excessive wildfire risk. This news allows me to privately thumb my nose at Chubb and applaud Farmers for taking on my policy. Now let’s get down to that trailer and unload those bikes while the risk Ju-Ju is running in my favor.