* * *COUNTDOWN: 6 DAYS TO LA/XC-5 * * *
Once again, oldest son Matt will be hitching a ride for a short stretch
on my just-around-the-corner (starts in less than one week from today!) Beagle Man cross-country-road-trip-with-dog. As you might recall, Matt joined me and Kemba on our northern return route — Portland, Oregon to Bismarck, North Dakota — on the 2015 journey. (I know Kemba remembers, cause he lost his shotgun seat for four days.) That trip brought Matt’s total to 41 in his quest to visit all 50 states, and this year he’ll be knocking off two more, Arkansas and Kentucky. The projected highlight of our road time together will be the Bluegrass state’s celebrated Bourbon Trail. (Anyone up for designated driver that day?)
Just this morning, though, Matt threw me a curveball: A current work project might dictate his meeting me in Little Rock a day-and-a-half earlier than planned, and will have him skipping out on the Beagle Man Tour earlier than planned, as well. So it appears I now need to have a Plan A and a Plan B. And we all know how well I deal with this kind of uncertainty.
Speaking of co-pilots and uncertainty . . .
This year Carol, my very own dear wife — Miss I-hate-long-car-drives, Miss I-always-get-carsick, Miss what-could-be-more-boring-than-mile-after-mile-of-highway — is flying out to Denver to meet me and Kemba for a Dierks Bentley concert at Red Rocks (a music venue near the top of my bucket list), and then joining the Beagle Man Tour for the last 1,000 miles into Los Angeles! For years Carol’s heard me rave about the awesomeness of the Grand Canyon and the other-worldly beauty of the land formations in Utah, etc., etc., and she’s finally decided to bite the bullet.
She’s already warned me she’ll be doing most of the driving, so as not to get nauseous; that we won’t be doing more than 250 miles a day (I’m accustomed to 400-500), and that the volume of my beloved music will have to be turned down to half my usual decibel level, if not lower. (Hearing all this, Tim the Trainer at my gym said to me, in a not-so-subtle taunt, “And be careful not to get your skirt too wrinkled in the shotgun seat.”) All I can say is, of the 32,391 miles I’ve covered in LA/XC-1 through LA/XC-4, Carol has joined me for all of one leg — 250 miles from Nashville to Atlanta — in 2013. And it wasn’t pretty.
Fingers crossed.
The upcoming journey became just a little more real this past Thursday when I visited my friend Jan Grey at the local Triple A office for the ceremonial stamping of my map of the United States. Every year since 2011, Jan has given me my AAA TourBooks and regional maps, and has neatly stamped her little green rings around the towns I’ve projected as my overnight destinations. Though I’m now a veteran cross-country trucker, it wouldn’t be an official LA/XC road trip without Jan’s seal of approval.
One little random side note: After quite a few weeks out at the beach in Montauk, Kemba and I made our return to Winslow Park in WePo last Monday. Stefanie, a dog park regular, wondered what had happened to my little red duck dog’s fur; it looked bleached out, she said, more blonde than ginger. And she was absolutely right: He did have that California surfer look of someone who’s been out in the sun too much. I’m sure his true colors will return with the fall foliage.
And now, Beagle Man followers, time for the annual Guess-the-Total-Mileage Contest — from the time the Beagle Man Tour departs Devon Road in Westport next Friday till the time the Audi Q5 returns to its garage in late October. Please send your entries via “Comments” to the blog. If you’re too old or pathetic to figure out how to do that, just send me an email (DoubleH50@gmail.com). Entries must be posted by midnight Tuesday, September 20 (three days from now). A bottle of smooth Kentucky Bourbon, straight from the distillery, to the winner.
LOOK FOR A NEW BEAGLE MAN POST EVERY THURSDAY. OR PRETTY CLOSE TO THURSDAY. COULD BE WEDNESDAY. OR FRIDAY. LET’S NOT GET TOO OBSESSIVE HERE . . . 🙂 OH, AND BTW, YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND INSTAGRAM.
So, now that Carol will become the admiral of the ship for a long stretch, wondering if she’ll also be doing a blog? Would be interesting to get a male/female, Carol/Hank take on the excursion and the sights. I didn’t notice that she doesn’t get to choose the list of songs…is that your way of maintaining a small sliver of your masculinity?
I’ve offered Carol a guest by-line, and am hoping she’ll take me up on it. Yes, she may wear the pants in a lot of ways on her leg of the trip . . . but the playlist? Not happening!
P.S. And where’s your contest entry???
Had Hank given me more information regarding his whole itinerary I would have a much better chance of winning the “Guess-the-Total-Mileage Contest” and the bottle of whiskey. With all of the crisscrossing Beagle Man and Kimba will do, it makes it more of a challenge to guess the mileage. However, in reading Hank’s blog I see he has provided me with a very helpful hint: he mentions his wife Carol and says, “All I can say is, of the 32,391 miles I’ve covered in LA/XC-1 through LA/XC-4…”. I’m not sure if this hint was intentional, but if I do the quick math, which may be hard for the math-challenged Beagle Man, I now know the average trip mileage. Therefore knowing that the last 4 trips averaged 8,097.75 miles (32,391 divided by 4) I now have a little better chance of guessing the total mileage of the LA/XC-5 trip. So I am going to guess 8,142 miles. Now we will just have to wait and see!!!
Safe trip old buddy 🙂 !!!
Carol may, indeed, acquiesce and grant BM his playlist selections, but I am betting for a big share of the Denver/LA leg, Carol has Kemba riding shotgun!
7273 miles