Off to Montreal today, after an interview on U of T campus radio. Read about the ride here.

I flew home on Saturday and it's good to be back, not packing up my cases every morning, strapping them down to the bike and moving on to the next city.

Yesterday, I rode in to town to talk to George Strombolopoulos on his Edge radio show, then today I spoke with the CBC and a couple of other radio shows. Really interesting conversations, actually. The CBC guy came down to the street to see the bike and record the sound of her exhaust, which is a pretty cool sound when she's running well. You should be able to find those interviews from links on my News or Reviews pages, which I'll post once they're ready.

As well, I dropped into some bookstores to sign books. "Always sign books!" they tell me. "Signed books will be displayed at the front of the store." But more to the point, signed books give you the chance to meet the store staff, who will then read your book and recommend it to people if they like it. Apparently.

Dropped off Lucy the Low Rider at the end of the day. That's her, waiting to be pushed into the Harley dealership to be drained and crated, then come home on a truck. I'll be happier when I see her again, in one piece...

Boy, this city is booming. Construction everywhere, and still it seems nobody with less than a million dollars can find a place to live.

Started the day with a live TV interview, which meant makeup and stuff. Fanny Kiefer - that's her at the table with me - is a very smart woman who was familiar with both books, which is always a nice surprise. Then an in studio radio chat, a coffee chat, another live radio interview and a live by phone radio interview. I messed that one up right at the end by saying "Thank you Landon," and realized immediately that the guy I'd been chatting with was named Murray Langdon. It was on a 7-second delay, so perhaps that was edited out.

It's strange to talk about my book so much - with people who are interested to hear about it - after so many years of writing it in the solitude of a quiet room. It's anot a vindication at all of all that effort, but it is rewarding to know that it did all come to something.

Every interview seems to have a zinger question that I never quite expect, which is welcome to get me thinking. But when Christy Clark, in the studio at the top picture, asked me on live radio why Pirsig chose the name Phaedrus for his pre-shock personality, I started explaining about how it had come from the Dialogue of Phaedrus and then stalled before mentioning its author. It was Plato, right? Surely? Yes, of course it was Plato, but on live radio you wonder about your own name, let alone some old Greek guy.

No, this isn't me suddenly with no hair. I turned up for the 6pm reading at this great independent book store and found that Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting, Porno, Filth and a few others would be there at 8pm to read from his new book Crime.

My own reading went well - or at least I thought it went well until I saw just how full Welsh could pack the room! He read from his book and took some questions - some of them thoughtful, some of them dumb, but all of them answered with grace and consideration - and then signed stacks and stacks of books.

I hung around to hear him because I think he's a wonderful writer who can truly describe a scene and give life to characters, even the depressing losers that he relishes. His audience loved him too, and there were a lot more piercings and tattoos and shag hair cuts than among those who come to listen to me...

Spent the morning here in Seattle catching up, then whisked off into town for a half-hour live spot in studio on the Ron and Don Show on AM radio. It's very popular, apparently, but pretty much as it sounds. Ron and Don took time out from traffic reports and the weather to ask about my road trip, and Robert Pirsig's road trip, and we never bothered much with the philosophy or the zen or the intellectual analysis - just the Yeah! It was a hoot...

Lost my frickin' wallet. Read all about it here on the road trip blog, under the "6,657 km." entry.

My route's held to the coast all the way since Santa Monica, but I wanted to leave the actual touching of the water until here in Crescent City, where I first reached the coast in 2004. Unlike back then, the weather is lovely, though cool now in the wind.

I parked the bike and walked down to the lighthouse and dipped my fingers in the Pacific, then wandered around a while. Now I'm at a Starbucks, putting on a sweater and trying to get motivated. I'll be out of California within the hour, and it's not letting go easily.

It's getting late and it's gloomy here among the redwoods. At this time of the early evening, they're majestic but I find them claustrophobic and foreboding.

I rode past the site of my front tire blowout - no flat this time - and brought Lucy into Miranda, and now find myself sitting on the very same stoop where I spent so long back in 2004, waiting for the tow truck. It's still quiet here, though there's no buzz of insects. More houses than I remember off to the south, but then, I wasn't looking for houses before. I shot a segment of the short movie I've been creating and just called my wife, Wendy, to let her know where I am. I have a new cell phone that's held a signal so far everywhere I've been. We talked for a while and I kept expecting to see/hear a Tracker coming through the trees from the north, but it stayed away. It didn't need to drive past this time.

It's getting late. I have to press on to Eureka. I won't get there until after dark, but I'm not afraid.

Rode up here all along the coast, crossing over the range at the Russian River. It's always a gamble to predict the weather by the shoreline, but today was a winning roll - the sun was warm and the sky blue. This is a more dramatic coastline than south of Monterey, with the smooth road literally held to the cliffside by stakes and pillars, with curving bridges over the inlets.

The site of the resolution itself was easy enough to find again, and I was surprised that the empty field was still empty. Houses all along the shore of the promontory, except for that half-acre or so of golden brown grass that I discovered in 2004. There's another house just to the west, separated by a thick hedge, and five deer were lying there in the shade, watching me.

The cliff drops a long way down to the water, where the surf crashes against rocks. Just to the east, surfers were enjoying the whitecaps rolling onto Caspar Beach - one guy was out there in the water with his dog, which was balancing on the board more successfully than him.

I don't know if there really was a resolution scene or not in 1968; it makes sense to have been completely fictionalized by Robert Pirsig to suit his literary purpose of tying up the loose ends and providing a showdown between the Narrator and Phaedrus. After all, Chris said later that he enjoyed his trip, and it seems unlikely that he would really have been sitting there, rocking with his head in his hands and crying, on a trip he enjoyed. But I also don't think I want to know. Pirsig would prefer that his book be left to stand on its own rather than be eroded by fact-finding enquiry, and this is one of the secrets that should be left to the imagination.

But true or not, the site is a splendid and fitting one. Works for me.

As I was about to leave, I took a longer look at the house to the west. It's not especially large but clearly expensive, surrounded by garden, electric fence and a secure iron gate. I wondered if its owner knew of the relevance of the site, then I noticed the house's name on the gate: Sea Ghost. The owner was not at home to ask (I pressed the buzzer a couple of times), but I think the importance has not been lost.

Today at Copperfields was my only afternoon reading - I turned up a half-hour beforehand and parked the bike right out front of the store, and went inside to meet Ray, who works there and who read and enjoyed my book. He sat in on the reading and was keen to ask the first question, about the freaky bronze statue that was in the yurt in Montana. Well, that was a new one!

I changed around the readings this time and offered some new passages that I've not read before, touching on Zen and its life lessons (well, this is California). I don't know if they were any more appealing, but I know that I like to read different things, so it made it better for me. And most people bought a book and stuck around for a chat.

Ray is a real fan of my book and he reminds a great deal of my friend Dan, in both looks and mannerisms - Dan's also a guy who has read Zen and the Art multiple times. I'm attaching a photo of Ray here taken after the signing so that if Dan reads this, he might see the resemblance. Dan, you've got a doppelganger in California.

I see that Kathleen Norris is coming to Copperfield's on Oct. 3. I'd love to hear her read. Her book Dakota: A Spiritual Geography is probably the only other book ever published that centres around Lemmon, South Dakota - well, the only one I know of, anyway. I read it after I visited and found its beautiful text put Lemmon and its challenges into a proper context, as a positive but realistic description of the appeal of the prairie.

Got up super early to go to San Carlos, a half-hour south of San Francisco, to shoot a five minute live TV spot on KRON with Henry Tenenbaum. Talk about seat-of-the-pants! The studio was set up in a UV television store, since Henry was also pitching special deals on flat screen televisions, with a free Blu-Ray player thrown in.

I used to work in TV, but this was something else. I drove in with Alex, who was put in charge of looking after me, and we found the San Carlos suburban wilderness with all quiet everywhere except for this TV crew of a half-dozen people, all talking to a woman named Leila in the real studio, which they pronounced "Lila", then turning to talk to me and halfway through, switching gears to talk to the studio again.

Henry admitted he hadn't read the book, not even more than a page of the book, but sat me down anyway and we hurtled into the five-minute spot. I have no idea what it looked like or how it sounded - I can't remember a thing we talked about. Probably nor can anyone else. Then I was done and Henry grabbed a Blu-Ray player and thrust it at the camera, with the cameraman calling out "More cow bell! More cow bell!!"

What a way to wake up.

Afterwards, Henry interviewed another author, a guy who's just written a book called "The 3 big questions for a frantic family." This is a guy with four boys under 10 who was rushing off to coach his twins' soccer practice.

I got back to the hotel just in time to check out, exhausted...

Got here literally just a couple of minutes before the event was due to begin, after falling asleep in the hotel room in San Francisco. I rode over the Bay Bridge on the bike, splitting lanes to catch up time, into the fog and impending rain of the mainland, but the weather held and I didn't seem like too much of a drowned rat when I arrived.

Once again, different questions from a different audience. I like to mix up the readings, reading different passages depending on why people tell me they wanted to come listen. I probably didn't get it right on this one, since only a minority actually bought my book at the end of the event. Somewhere like Berkeley, I should probably have concentrated on the Zen side of things.

I'd have liked to have stayed out and explored, but it's late and I have to be up early in the morning to go shoot a TV spot. So with a Friday night to kill in San Francisco, right at Fisherman's Wharf, I'm straight back to the room and bed. Ann Patchett wrote recently about going on book tour in The Atlantic, and so far, this whole experience is pretty bang on what she describes.

What a great book store!

I just gave a reading that was both well attended and enthusiastically received. I like to ask at the outset for some feedback of who in the audience has read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (and who's read it all the way through), and usually most people have. And usually, most everybody is very curious about it and interested to hear about the context in which it was created.

Tonight was no different, and once again the questions afterwards were varied and thoughtful. Thanks, Gena, for helping to arrange such an enjoyable evening!

Now, go over to my road trip blog to find out why I love the Santa Cruz area so much. I'll start moving the blog from wheels.ca over to this site soon, but for now, you'll read it first there.

Ian Glendinning has just posted a sensitive and perceptive commentary on his psybertron blog about coming to Minneapolis and attending my book launch. Read it here.

I went to a bunch of bookstores today, including Barnes and Noble, Borders, Vroman's in Pasadena and Book Soup in West Hollywood, to sign books. Fortunately, I was driven around by Ann Binney, who took great care of me and made sure we didn't get lost. This city is a labyrinth of highways!

There was time in the evening to go to a nearby bookstore and take in a reading by another author, which I was curious to attend, both for the author experience and the book. But I won't name the author, because he didn't turn up. Big posters advertising it, and a number of best-selling books to his name, and he just didn't arrive. They kicked us out - all five of us - at 10 minutes past the start time, without even an apology.

I reckon he'd sent an accomplice ahead, who'd seen the feeble turnout, and he decided that his time wasn't worth it. Well, you know what, Mr. Big Time Author? That was my time too.

Fortunately, I've had great turnouts so far, and very good feedback from the three readings I've given. But even if there was only one person in the room, I don't think you can decide that your time is worth more than their's.

Or maybe he really was late. Doubt it, though.

Made it late this afternoon to Santa Monica, where the Best Western people were happy to offer safe parking for Lucy and the air conditioning works. After the high-90s temperatures of the Nevada and California deserts (it's 97 in this photo at Baker. Calif., on "the world's largest thermometer,") it's a gorgeous day here by the ocean.

I'll be signing books at Barnes and Noble stores here, but there are no public events. That's okay - it's tiring riding across the country, and I could do with an evening to rest up.

The bike's back on the road and running well, and I've taken the side road down through Utah, Hwy. 89, which parallels the interstate. I came through Zion national park on my way home from the '04 trip and it was wonderful, so I wanted to see how it still is. And of course, it's inspirational. Makes you know that there has to be a god.

On the way here, I've been thinking about the flat tire in Colorado, which you'll know about if you read my wheels.ca roadtrip blog. I've only ever had a couple of flats in my 30 years of riding, and then this one happens just as I'm going over and over in my head that this will be the most perfect day of riding for me ever. As if to stress that my life is easily shaped by experience, and never predictable. Like the coincidence in the redwoods in the California chapter of Zen and Now. Or in the Rockies on the way home, when my odometer read 88,888.8 at the exact time that the altimeter on the GPS read 8,888. Don't believe me? Look at the photo on the "Moments of Zen" gallery.

And then, just outside this park, at a church, a sign that read: "Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous." I can't get that out of my head. Maybe I should get to a church...

Check out the fuss around my flat tire at the road trip side of this blog, at wheels.ca

Gave a lovely reading tonight at the Tattered Cover. What a great bookstore! It's full of people who love books, and it's the kind of place I could browse all day.

The reading was successful, too - more smart questions after I read some passages from the book, and I really felt a click with the people who'd come out.

When this tour is over, maybe I'll post some of the recordings I'm making of the readings I give, to be listened to on this site.

A highlight was meeting Mel, a contributor to the forum of the moq.org site, who wrote a review for moq that I've posted on the reviews page. That's him in the photo with me. If you're too lazy to go to the reviews page, this is what he wrote:

---

Richardson has written a book that walks/rides a deliberately winding line between homage, biography, invitation to revisit both Pirsig’s thoughts, and the same type of ‘real world’ opportunity to look at things through the lens of quality. It is (deliberately, I think) light on the MOQ but clear on pointing the reader to a shared consensus of Quality.

It is a personal journey and a journalist’s second-pair-of-eyes on the world mythologized in Pirsig’s ZMM book. We get to see some of the “chorus” members of his book cast in a second light. (As those who’ve played at photography know a secondary light source can add depth and complexity andat time clarity to an image. It can hint and imply more)

His work has a hint of melancholy and a touch of his personal worries. Both add the flavor of the struggle of any seeker after what is “more.” It is smartly written and should serve to open the door to ZMM for those who are daunted by the work itself and yet it is a pleasant literary meditation on the familiar feel of the original journey for readers who’ve come to give a place in their heart to ZMM.
There are technical points that may be arguable by folks who’ve spent years considering the whole-of-it, but just as good Jazz can evoke another piece of music in its own terms, this book brings a fresh echo to recall the enduring original.

Had a great discussion this morning with Tom Ashbrook of On Point, talking to him in Boston from the NPR studio in Denver.

I'll post it on the News page, but for now, you can see and hear it here.

Ron DiSanto, co-author of the Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was also in on the chat, by phone, and Jim Landis, Pirsig's original editor, joined in halfway through. A number of people phoned in and it was good to hear their various views on why Zen and the Art has endured so well over the years.

The producers really wanted Robert Pirsig to join in, too, and they asked me to contact him in order to let him know the program was happening, which I dutifully did, though I have no idea if he read the e-mail in time. If he did then he took the high road and didn't call, staying in the background as he prefers to do these days, which surprised nobody. He feels he's said his piece on all this.

I have another reading tonight at the Tattered Cover bookstore near here, then it's off tomorrow to California. The rain's stopped now, so I'm keen to get back on the road.

Well, that was no fun at all.
This is high plains desert, so the driving rain that's pounding the area is flooding the roads and spraying all over the vehicles.
I got into Boulder with a little time to spare (though if there'd been a problem along the way, or I'd stopped to do something, such as eat lunch, I'd have been jiggered) and the rain started soon after I parked the bike at the bookstore. The store guy covered the luggage with a plastic bag for me - I guess he doesn't know much about motorcycles.
Leaving for this hotel, though, the rain was driving heavily and I had no map to find where I was going. And with the rain, there was nobody out of shelter to ask directions. I got completely lost somewhere around Columbine before tracking my way back to the interstate and down to the hotel.
I hate having to arrive at the end of the day at a fixed time. I can get here before the days ends, but having to be 500 miles from the start point by 7.30 really sucks. There's no wiggle room for problems. Can you tell this rain is blackening my mood?
There's a free day tomorrow - well, an NPR radio interview in the morning and a bookstore reading in the evening - but there'll be time for laundry and some catching up. And maybe some sleep.

:

Got into Boulder after a fairly hard couple of days (read, a thousand miles) and gave a reading at the charming Boulder bookstore. I especially enjoyed meeting the guy who had trailered his Yamaha R1 to the mountains from California while his wife and son flew in - he didn't know about the signing and made sure to sit in before dashing to the airport to collect his family.

It's pouring rain outside and Kate, seen in the picture here, and the other store staff looked sympathetic as I donned all the rain gear for the ride south to the other side of Denver here. Got horribly lost in the driving spray looking for the hotel - sometimes, I wish I had a GPS on this trip!

My secret admirer a couple of posts ago was wondering what I'm riding on this trip, so here's a picture of Lucy, my '08 Harley Low Rider, somewhere in the middle of Nebraska.

I'm keeping another blog about the road trip on this book tour, which is published on the wheels.ca website of my newspaper, the Toronto Star. You can find the blog here.

This is a good day for riding. The temperature's in the high 60s, the wind is at my back and the clouds are keeping the sun from my eyes. All these things matter on a motorcycle.
I haven't plugged in the iPod at all, after all that annoyance back in Wisconsin. I don't need anything else on a day like this. Mind you, I almost ran out of gas to get here. The last station was more than 100 km away, and I didn't need gas back then. I can go about 300 km on a tank, and I like to start looking around at 200 km. So I did, and there was no station until now, with perhaps another 10 or 15 km left in the tank.
Just crossed the state line a few minutes ago. The Welcome to Nebraska sign facing back east was peppered with gunshot. Gotta love the midwest!

There's not much here in Funk, in the middle of the prairie, except a grain elevator and some trees around the river sheltering a few houses, but you've just got to stop at a place called Funk, right?
I'm on the secondary road that heads due west to Yuma and Denver. I could take the interstate, with its 75 mph speed limit, but I'm happier here with a 65 mph limit. The Harley's comfortable at around 70 or so, anyway.
There's a lot more happening on Nebraska's prairie than the bare fields of the Dakotas farther north, which is the route I'm used to taking west. That's comparative though. Most people here just turn on the music and wait to get to the end of the drive.

Got in an hour after dark. Never did rain on me. I'd have arrived an hour earlier, but ended up chatting to Deb in the Columbus, NE, Harley dealership for a while. I'd stopped in to try to buy some earplugs, but they don't sell them in Harley dealerships. We talked about what we like about motorcycles and how there doesn't seem to be any time any more to just get out and ride them. But it's like everything, and like this trip – you've got to make the time for it.
I was going to stay in Lincoln, Nebraska, but it's a 1,500 km ride through to Boulder from Minneapolis, and I knew I'd need to get more than half-way today. I've got to be at the bookstore by 7.30, and it's still 700 km away, and I want to take the scenic route...

It's been cold all morning, despite the southerly wind that's buffeting me around. I've always loved the cornfields of eastern Iowa – Hwy. 555 (the Triple Nickel) is one of the best roads in the country, following the Mississippi – but Western Iowa seems to be nothing but hog farms and trucks moving those hogs back and forth. The trucks drive fast and their slipstream picks up the gravel from beside the road and showers me with it, which is at least a distraction from the smell.
It's getting warmer now, though it's overcast. There's rain all around, though none on me yet.

This is the longest day of the trip – I hope. I have to get to Boulder, Colorado, in time for a bookstore reading on Thursday evening, which means I have to reach and cross the prairie in less than two days. Not a big deal in a car, but it's more tiring on the bike against the perpetual headwind. And the forecast is for rain.

At the Otis house, left to right: John Curry, John Sutherland, Susan Nemitz, Nancy James, Ollie Foran and Mark.

A dozen or so of us gathered after the signing at the house on Otis. Nancy James and Martin had come the greatest distance, from Florida, while Ian Glendinning (of the Psybertron blog) came from Alabama. It was a marvellous opportunity to hear some stories of the Pirsigs and their life in the Twin Cities, and of the other people involved with the book, including the Sutherlands and even Ollie Foran, who now owns the original Sutherland BMW.

Now it's after 2 am and I have to be up in four hours to ride to central Nebraska. But nothing can top today and I don't want it to end.

Above, Susan Nemitz introduces Mark to the audience.

I still can't believe that more than 100 people came to the launch today of Zen and Now. I was expecting half a dozen. I was going to read just a couple of passages but it was so well received that I ended up reading four, with comments in between and plenty of smart questions from those who attended.

Afterwards, while signing books, each person had a story to tell me about why they were there, and each story was different. After five years of creation, this was the payoff.

I went over this afternoon to meet John Sutherland, and it was the first time I'd seen him since I came through here in 2004. Sutherland's the friend who rode with the Pirsigs back in 1968. We chatted for four hours! While I was there, Ollie Foran called to confirm he's coming to the launch event tomorrow, and Nancy James called my cell phone to arrange for a lunch tomorrow. He hadn't spoken to her in 20 years. It's all getting close!

It doesn't matter how well organized I think I am, there'll always be something. This morning, I had to ride over to the old Pirsig house on Otis Avenue to be interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio. So I went down to the bike and unlocked the alarmed disc lock on the front wheel, the thing that howls if somebody tries to move the bike.

The lock unlocked but then started chirping loudly. The batteries need replacing, and it's the same chirp you get from your fire detector. Except I replaced the batteries in May (cost me $20 for the six of them), and they're only accessible - and removeable - by unscrewing a pair of tiny Allen bolts. And I don't have a tiny Allen key with me. Two in the garage at home, but would you think to bring one? I have Allen keys for every bolt on the Harley, but not the lock.

I rode over to Otis and the reporter thought my ticking bomb noise was hilarious. He whipped out his microphone and got me to riff on about bloody technology, which I was happy to do after the iPod debacle. I'll put his audio story up on the Reviews page when it's broadcast tomorrow.

John Curry in the Pirsig house had a tiny Allen key and was able to remove the batteries. Remember this if you want to buy a Xena lock!

Came over on the fast ferry this morning from Muskegon to Milwaukee, almost literally flying across Lake Michigan at 35 mph. That cut out Detroit and Chicago, which is fine by me.

Milwaukee to Minneapolis is about 350 miles, so once again I stayed on the damn interstate to make up time. It wasn't a pleasant ride. Into the wind, the highway seems to funnel the air at you and at 70 mph it's just a matter of holding on and waiting for the end. Which is boring, too. And my head itched like crazy under the helmet as if somebody had put itching powder in there. So I pulled over and was looking for a do-rag to wear to relieve the itch and instead found a small portable FM radio, 10 bucks.

I wired it into the helmet speakers to relieve the boredom but it just made matters worse, since it kept losing reception and when it did work, it only picked up country music. I turned it off just as the clouds began to really threaten from the north, and when the interstate split to head west to La Crosse, away from the rain and into the sunshine, I turned with it to take the drier route.

It rained on me anyway, hard but brief and just enough to dirty the bike. On the other side of the Mississippi, the rain ended, the sun came out and the road got so much better, following the west bank of the river. It was a lovely ride. Somewhere along the way I realized how much better this was to travel on a smaller highway with just my thoughts than with other people in my head, so I made a promise to myself not to listen to iPods anywhere except the interstate. Spent the time thinking through this book tour and now feel a lot happier about it as it's getting underway.

I ran out of time to restore the iPod to its factory settings this morning, so plugged it all in once I got to the Best Western here in Minneapolis. I poised the mouse over the "Restore" key to delete everything and start anew. And noticed an Apple icon on the screen. The iPod was working! It needed a good long charge, but it seems to be fine, after 24 hours of not turning on and creating "your iPod seems to be corrupted" messages on the laptop.

Couldn't believe it. I left it to charge and went down to the hotel bar for a beer. Took my copy of Zen and the Art, too, which I'm reading over one last time. I'm at page 205 of the 25th Anniversary edition, and promptly read: "Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV it's a shame more people don't switch over to it. They probably think what they hear is unimportant but it never is."

Freaky, huh? I'd better make sure I don't break that promise. These things keep happening to me. Check out the photo of my speedometer and altimeter on the "Moments of Zen" gallery. Just another of those weird things that mean nothing and yet mean everything.

A lovely final ride in on the secondary but fast highway along the Mississippi river, past the vacation towns of Pepin and Red Wing. It was after dark when I arrived here and I got lost in the Twin Cities' one-way system, taking an extra half hour involuntary tour of this geographically baffling city before finding the hotel. Well, at least I didn't arrive during the Republican convention last year. It would have been easier with a GPS unit, but for some reason, the $250 units turn into $600 units when they're designed for motorcycles. And there's a definite sense of victory after finding your destination on a map.

I was going to stay on the interstate all the way up to St. Paul, but very dark rain clouds ahead made me turn west sooner than expected to try to avoid them. I got soaked anyway. I've finally, after years of accumulation, got all the gear to stay dry, so it's not really about avoiding getting wet but avoiding getting the bike dirty. She's filthy now, but at least she looks like she gets ridden.

The fast ferry was fun this morning. A friend of mine told me – taught me – years ago that no road trip is complete without a ferry somewhere along the way, and so I'm pleased to be able to take this ferry from Muskegon straight across the lake and avoid Detroit and Minneapolis.
I pulled up at the terminal and another couple with a Harley Ultra Glide were already waiting there for the crossing. Red and Linda are from Portland, Oregon, and on their way home after visiting relatives in Michigan. He's a retired Air Force fighter pilot and his hog is the Forces Special, with badging that's only available with proof that you're in or retired from the US armed forces. Man, those Harley marketing folks are smart.
We chatted for a long while about many things, while the people waiting in their cars sat and watched us through their windows, engines running and air conditioners humming.

I woke really early this morning, ticked off that the iPod decided to break on me. So I lay in the dark and went over the options, and realized that all I can do is see if it will restore itself when I connect to the Apple website. This will completely erase everything already on the iPod and start it again, and since I don't have my library saved on this laptop, that means there'll be nothing.
Not to worry. I was getting bored of those 1,450 tunes, podcasts and videos anyway after listening to them all so many times. I can download something new instead.
Then I realized that I'm moaning about this while warm and dry in my comfy Best Western, breakfast soon to begin, coffee ready to brew. On my first big road trip, years ago, I slept in a public toilet because I had no money. And once I slept in a bank machine kiosk.
Before I got this iPod last year, I never even owned a Walkman or anything like it. I've never taken a road trip before on a bike and listened to anything except my own thoughts.
Age really does soften you up, you know.

I can't say that this ride has been exciting so far, because I just needed to make time to get here tonight. This is the eastern shore of Lake Huron, and I'm here because I want to avoid Detroit and Chicago. Detroit is depressing and I always take a wrong turn after the bridge and get lost, while Chicago is construction and stop-and-go traffic. But the fast ferry that sails from Grand Haven every day to Milwaukee in around three hours bypasses all that. And besides – no true road trip is complete without a ferry in there somewhere. I can't think of any others between here and southern California, so I'll seize the chance while I can.
I'm headed all the way to Los Angeles, through Minneapolis and Denver, then right up the coast to Vancouver with stops at San Francisco and Seattle. I'm riding my Harley Low Rider, Lucy, and she's very comfortable. Then I truck her home from Vancouver and fly back to Toronto, stay a day or two, then get on my old dirt bike, the Suzuki that's in my book, Jackie New, and ride her to Montreal, New York City and Boston before getting home properly. Hopefully in one piece.
And every mile I cover now headed west, leaning back against the pack and nestled into the Harley's fat-ass touring seat behind the protection of the windshield, I think of how it's going to be on that dirt bike: her seat like a two-by-four, her strained engine, chest in the wind. I must be nuts.

It was soooo anticlimactic this morning, waking at 4 am to the sound of pouring rain outside. This was supposed to be the final resolution of five years of research and writing, and a simple turn in the weather changes everything.

Dragged my feet, but finally got going at noon, with 400 miles to go. Part of the late start was because I've been working out a way to wire my iPod into my helmet, and I spent some time this morning fixing up the wiring of a pair of ultra-thin speakers inside the shell. I bought them from Whitehorse Press and paid extra for the shipping to be rushed to arrive in time for this trip. The music is fabulous! On a trip like this, which will need some riding on the boring interstate to make up time, music will make all the difference. Podcasts, too - my favorite is This American Life.

Then somewhere in rural Michigan, after taking a wrong turn and curving my way back to I69, the music just stopped.

Now I've plugged the iPod into this laptop and it tells me it's corrupted. All I can do is to restore it to factory settings and lose all its saved music and programming. And because my iTunes is on the desktop at home and I'd never gotten around to saving it on this laptop (not a simple procedure), I have no music to load onto it. So it's completely useless.

I got it for Christmas eight months ago and have treated it with nothing but kid gloves. Bloody technology. I'll see if there's somebody in Minneapolis who can fix it, but don't hold out much hope.

Bloody technology.

Another typical road trip screw up. The great plan was to have very little to do today, so that all I needed to do was pack before setting off on tomorrow's promotional "meet the author" tour. And it's 10 pm and I've been running around on errands and unfinished business all day and I haven't even started packing yet.

I had lunch today with Zen and Now's Toronto publisher to wish me well on next week's book tour, which seems as good a moment to start this blog as any. I'm looking forward to the ride west on my comfortable Harley Low Rider. It'll be the longest trip I've made since riding to California in 2004.

There've been a number of interviews already and a buzz seems to be growing around my book. Each interview seems to find a different focus, or take a different tack. I'll be posting any stories that are published on the "reviews" page of this web site, so you can keep track of them with me.

The latest review filtered through to me today, from Susan Carpenter of the Los Angeles Times. I read her regularly, as well as her colleague Dan Neil, and her writing is as good as it gets. You can read her review here. It's interesting that she wanted to know more about my personal life, since throughout the writing of Zen and Now, people who read it told me that they didn't care about me, they just wanted to know about Robert Pirsig. And now that the book's complete, many people want to know more about its author. Perhaps this blog will help shed some light, if anyone cares to know. Not too much though. We've all got to have some secrets.