It’s hard to get away from it all when you insist on taking it all with you

I’d love to take your money, really. But I have no one to pass it on to.

Last week’s column detailed my plans for a 500-mile bicycle ride from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan and back again, slated to begin right after Labor Day weekend. Within hours of posting that column online, I was inundated with emails from folks offering to help sponsor my “cause,” whatever it might be. More offers poured in when the column came out in print.

Everybody asked the same question: “What are you riding for?”

Folks assumed my tour is part of some larger effort—cancer research, AIDS, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, something like that. I wish it were, because so many readers seem willing to contribute and I could have raised some real money for a good cause.

But there is no cause. There is no organized group. It’s just me on a bicycle, peddling across the big empty spaces between small Michigan towns. My sore butt and stiff knees won’t be bringing in a dime for anybody, and that’s a shame. If I’m ever crazy enough to attempt this again, I’ll find a cause to support, promise.

At any rate, thanks for the offers of support. Reality Check readers rule!

I’ve been training hard for the ride, peddling an average of 35 miles every day; not going for speed, only distance. I’m hoping to clock off between 40 and 50 miles each day during the tour itself. Being a geezer, that seems like a lot to me, but I think I can do it. If I can’t, I’m hoping some MDOT worker finds my body before the snow falls.

I’ve also begun making a list of things I need to take with me, stuff like a flashlight, tent, sleeping bag and all that. When I first started planning the trip, I pictured a couple Pannier bags containing a change of clothes, a one-person tent, some flip-flops, and a water bottle.

Since then, the list has grown exponentially. There are over 50 items on the list at this point and it keeps right on growing. And it’s all stuff I’m not sure I can live without.

Like a first aid kit. This is me doing this ride; I’m almost sure to suffer some sort of contusion, abrasion or sprain before I reach my destination. There will be no nurse in attendance (though that would probably be a good idea) so I’ll have to minister to my own wounds.

An extension cord. I’ll need one to recharge my BlackBerry, GPS and netbook from time to time, so I can maintain the daily blog stuff I plan to do each evening. (You’ll be able to follow this, if you’re really desperate for entertainment, at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com.)

Granola and turkey jerky. Gotta eat, after all.

GPS unit, so I don’t get too lost. Maps, just in case the battery dies on my GPS.

Knife, in case I’m attacked by marauders, banditos, or guys with big, pink Mohawk haircuts. (Yeah, I know, I’ve seen too many of those Mad Max flicks.)

Bug spray. Sleeping by the side of the road under the stars is going to be more “roughing it” than I’m comfortable with already; I don’t plan on feeding the local insect population as well.

Pepper spray, because farm dogs often do bite. I learned this the hard way years ago.

Zip ties, twist ties, bungee cords, rope and duct tape, because you always need these for something.

A razor, shampoo, soap, toothbrush and paste, deodorant, and contact lens solution, just in case I find myself in a situation where I don’t want to look like a half-crazy derelict.

Two paperbacks.

A towel. The single most important piece of equipment in the traveler’s arsenal, as anyone who’s read “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” already knows.

There’s a bunch of other stuff on the list as well. A conservative estimate has the lot weighing in at about four metric tons, all of which I will try to move from sea to shining sea under pedal-power alone.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll accept your money after all, and use it to buy a bus ticket.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Thirty years aren’t enough to keep me off the open road

Last time I tried it, I was 30 years younger and 30 pounds lighter. I rode my bike (the kind with pedals) from Grand Rapids to Quebec, a distance of 500 miles plus change. The trip I’m planning next month is more modest, but not by much. I plan to ride from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan and—if I’m still drawing breath by then—back again.

According to the folks at Google Maps, it’s just under 500 miles, round trip.

That doesn’t seem like much if you’re floating along in an Escalade, 403 horses pushing you smoothly along the asphalt at 70 mph while the air conditioner pumps out arctic blasts and Alanis Morissette resonates smoothly from your surround sound speaker system. But trust me; if you’re grunting your way one geezer-powered mile at a time over dusty back roads, the distance seems considerably more daunting.

I’m not sure what put the idea for the trip into my head. I’ve been riding a lot lately, for the exercise, I suppose, but mostly just for the fun of it. I average between 25 and 35 miles a day. Sometimes I overdo it and my knees wind up hurting; when that happens I take a day off.

The weather’s been for the most part cooperative and it’s cheaper than joining a gym.

A couple days ago I began mapping out my trip in broad strokes. Since I’m not Lance Armstrong (the only similarity being that at one time we were both hot for Cheryl Crow) I plan to take things slow. I’m hoping to average about 50 miles per day, or five days each direction. If I fall behind my schedule, then I fall behind. The people from Sports Illustrated will not be waiting for me at the finish line.

My good friend Anne (not the Anne I was dating who these days would prefer to see me staked naked to an anthill and smothered in honey, but a different Anne) lives near Lake Michigan. She has promised to have cold beer and grilled steak waiting for me when I arrive. Considering how I’m likely to smell by the time I get there, I consider this the ultimate act of friendship.

Along the way I plan to camp out along the road or in campgrounds if any happen to be nearby at the end of the day. I may stay in a hotel once or twice, again if I’m near one at day’s end. Mostly, with regard to accommodations, I’m playing it by ear.

There’s far too much organization, planning and foresight in adult life. When I was 19, I planned diddley. All the planning for my long-ago trip to Quebec involved strapping a tarp and sleeping bag to the back of my bike and peddling north. I had no change of clothes, very little money, and no map. I just went.

Being older and allegedly wiser these days, I’m putting a little more thought into this trip, but again, not too much thought. I’m taking more money, a better sleeping bag and a one-man tent instead of a sheet of moldy plastic. I’m also taking my GPS, a map, my cell phone, my mini-laptop computer, my…OK, I’ll admit it; I’m taking everything I can carry.

Just in case.

Last time I tried something like this, a Georgia peanut farmer was President of the United States. I was 19, immortal, and invulnerable. My life stretched out in front of me like a field before the plow; the future glimmered with hope and promise.

Those days are gone; the years behind me are almost certainly more numerous than those yet to come.

But there are still places I haven’t seen, ideas I haven’t considered, folks with whom I’ve never spoken. Life is every bit as fresh and filled with wonder as it was all those long years ago.

If it takes a sore backside and tired knees to remember that, well, that’s a small price to pay.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Gentlemen, start your engines. But first, fill out just one more form

Rented my first car last weekend. Since my 16^th birthday, I’ve always had my own wheels, dilapidated though they sometimes were. But a few weeks ago, my Mercury finally cashed in its chips and I have yet to replace it. So when I needed to make a four-day trip out of town, I decided to give the rental place a try.

To paraphrase Jerry Garcia, “What a long, strange trip it was.”

Turns out you can’t just walk into the rental office, say, “Gimme a car,” and drive away, not if you want a decent rate, anyway. To get the best rate, one must go—where else?—online.

There are several “price fixer” sites on the Internet; I tried them all in an effort to save a buck. I finally settled on the one featuring an older, fatter version of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk in their advertising.

I told Captain Kirk what days I would need the car, what type of car I was looking to rent, and how much I wanted to spend.

Now, it’s true that Kirk no longer pilots a starship where no man has gone before, but he still has some pull with car rental companies, apparently, because he was able to find me a fairly decent bargain on a gas-efficient Pontiac not six blocks from my house.

I made my reservation, after which I was taken to a page detailing the items the rental place would need from me. Because I was paying with a debit card, rather than my insanely-high-interest Visa, I would need the following items: 1) a valid driver’s license; 2) proof of insurance; 3) a pay stub showing my current address; 4) a paid receipt from a major utility bill; 5) my birth certificate; 6) my social security card; 7) a pound of my flesh; 8) my first born son; and 9) a quart of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, preferably “Chubby Hubby” or “Cherry Garcia.”

I spent a couple days gathering up all the required documentation, organized it into a loose leaf binder, and then carefully labeled each page according to date, time and subject. After creating an index page, I alphabetized the whole mess for good measure.

When I walked through the doors of the rental place, I was ready. Or so I thought.

Because I moved recently, most of my paperwork still displays my previous address. This frustrated the rental car people no end.

“But my driver’s license has my current address,” I said. “So does…um…this check! And my phone bill!”

“It’s not the same as the address on your insurance information,” the rental guy noted.

“I know,” I said. “That’s my old address.”

“And this ice cream is praline pecan parfait,” said the rental guy. “It’s supposed to be ‘Chubby Hubby’ or ‘Cherry Garcia.’”

“The market was out of those,” I explained.

The exchange continued for about 20 minutes, in more or less this vein. Finally, making it quite clear he strongly suspected I was an illegal alien or terrorist of some kind who would no doubt fill the car with explosives before parking it in front of a Chucky Cheese’s somewhere, the rental guy handed over the keys.

One short retina scan, fingerprinting, and cursory cavity search later, I was driving away.

The rental guy seemed a little surprised when I brought the unexploded car back four days later.

“Now that you have me on file, I guess we won’t have to go through all that next time I rent from you, right?” I asked.

“Oh, no, we’ll still need all the same information every time,” he said, smiling.

I’m going car shopping tomorrow.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

I’m in love, at least in the digital sense

I’m in dangerous territory here and I know it. I’ve fallen in love. Not real love, but the kind of love a third-grade kid feels for his 23-year-old teacher. I guess infatuation would be a better term; more accurate, at least. But it’s definitely something.

To compound the problem, the person for whom I’ve fallen isn’t even a real person, at least not yet. She’s just a couple photos and a dozen emails. So far, she’s not even a phone call, just a series of electronic pixels exchanged via the internet.

But I’m crazy about her.

Sure, I know it’s juvenile in the extreme, but I can’t help myself. We’ve emailed back and forth pretty much non-stop for the past couple days, and if it’s possible to fall for someone based on nothing but the written word, then I have.

I’ve heard about situations like this, but never thought it would happen to me. I’m just not the sort of guy to whom this sort of thing happens. I’m not a hopeless romantic, I’m not naïve, I don’t believe in “fate,” and I’m not particularly lonely, desperate or insecure. I don’t have trouble meeting women in “real life.” I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not Brad Pitt, but I do okay for a guy my age.

And still I’ve been checking my in-box every 20 minutes since the day we “met,” waiting for her next email.

So what is about this girl that’s disturbing my otherwise tranquil life? Well, she’s southern for one thing. Even in her writing her accent is evident, and I like it, a lot. And speaking of writing, she’s good at it; she communicates well with the written word—you wouldn’t believe how rare that is these days.

I even like her name.

Then there’s the fact she likes the same things I do, and I’m not just talking about the “thunderstorms and long walks on the beach” kind of baloney. She’s a fisherman. That’s one of the building blocks of a perfect relationship, far as I’m concerned. She likes dogs. She hates winter and is afraid to ride street motorcycles, same as me.

She loves to read and laugh (which is how we “met,” but that’s a story for another time). She likes flea markets. If she has a flaw, it’s that she loves to dance. I’m hoping this love won’t extend to wanting me to dance. But if it does, well, who knows, maybe I’ll go against everything I believe and learn a couple steps myself. (Though, she’ll have to be pretty darn wonderful for this to happen!)

We’re supposed to meet this Saturday, face to (gasp!) face. And yeah, I know chances are we won’t even like each other once we’re actually looking at each other over cups of coffee, tea or mint juleps (remember, she’s southern). She won’t like the way I smell, or I won’t like the sound of her voice. The pheromones will be all wrong. She’ll remind me too much of my sister or I’ll remind her too much of her drunk Uncle Harry.

There’s a million reasons we won’t hit it off.

But we might. Meanwhile, I get to feel hopeful, and that’s not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com