My body is still on Arkansas time, so I woke up about 5:30 a.m. That's a good thing because it gave me enough alone time to blog and surf without ignoring my hosts. After everyone got up and had breakfast, Steve and I played a game of Flickin' Chicken with Lisa in the back yard. The game involves throwing a red frisbee thing, then tossing rubber chickens until your chicken lands and sticks on the frisbee. It's scored like nine holes of golf. Lisa beat us both by one chicken toss. We set off about 11 a.m. with nothing firm on our agenda other than to rendezvous with a friend of Lisa's at the Red Rocks Cinema at 2 p.m. to see Cars 2. I wanted to see the pawn shop in Pawn Stars, so we ... read more

I’m stopped for lunch at the Subway in Vilonia, Ark. and listening to the recitation of health violations at an employees’ meeting. There were a lot of them, but nothing lethal. They’re on probation for three months. I decided to stop here for lunch because I was overtaking a small thunderstorm and figured it was a convenient way to let the storm get out of my path. Plus, now that I have the netbook fired up, I can see the Weather Channel radar and know when it’s safe to go. I spent a pleasant evening and night last night at the home of Sue Crumbo, a lifelong friend and high school classmate from Delphi, Ind. at her home in Edmond, just north of Oklahoma City. She and her boyfriend Guy feted me grandly with a huge ... read more

ALBUQUERQUE, NM - I was on the road about 5 a.m. today, keen to gain altitude into Arizona before the heat of the day. It was about 92 when I left Steve and Nicky’s house in Vegas and that was the hottest temperature I experienced all day. I actually felt a few sprinkles as I rode through the pre-dawn darkness in Las Vegas. My new starter button refused to work for the first several presses this morning, giving rise to feelings of despair. It finally fired and continued to fire on the first press the rest of the day, but it’s alarming to say the least, since I spent almost $500 to replace one that was doing the same thing. The audio extension cord I use to connect my in-ear monitors with the GPS broke and ... read more

LAS VEGAS – I rolled out of the motel parking lot a little after 7 a.m. in gray chilly weather, but was soon in bright sunlight as I rode east and up the mountainside toward U.S. 101. I gassed on the east side of Paso Robles, but forgot to get the receipt and record my mileage, so I have to reconstruct it for my travel log. I remember the gas was $3.29/gallon and I was able to get the mileage reading since I reset my trip meter at every fill-up. Now all I have to do is wait for the charge to clear on my online bank site and I can calculate the amount of gas. I stopped to shed my windstopper pullover somewhere between Paso Robles and I-5, paused at the Lost Hills exit for ... read more

MONTEREY, Calif. – I’m back to one of my favorite places in the whole world – the Monterey Peninsula and the PCH south. It was reasonably warm when I left Redding this morning and I realized I needed to get to the coast before it got insanely hot in the Central Valley. Gassing on the south side of Redding, I confirmed what I had suspected, since my left in-ear monitor worked fine yesterday. The problem is in the right-angle connector between my extension wire and the GPS unit. That’s a huge relief since I initially worried that I was doomed to ride the rest of the way home with only the right speaker functioning. Garmin routed me around the east and south side of the San Francisco Bay area, which involved several miles on I-680. I ... read more