Planning for the 2006 Road Trip

The trip to Alaska remains a 2007 aspiration because I want to have three weeks for the trip, and I don't have that much time available right now. This year's two-week trip will take us to both of the Glacier National Parks, the Waterton Glacier national park in Montana & Alberta, Canada, and the one between the Purcell and Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia, Canada.

Glacier National Park, British Columbia

Glacier National Park , Montana

The big anticipation is Going to the Sun Road a reputedly spectacular 52 mile, paved two-lane highway that bisects the Montana Glacier National park east and west. The road runs the width of the glacier, crossing the Continental Divide at the 6,646-foot-high Logan Pass. The road passes through almost every type of terrain in the park, from large glacial lakes and cedar forests in the lower valleys to windswept alpine tundra atop the pass.

Our plan is to ride between 8 and 10 hours a day. The only time we'll be covering a big chunk of miles in one day will be when we leave the bay area and when we return. We'll be riding secondary roads through mountains and avoiding the major highways.

Right now my bike is at the dealership, awaiting a replacement part. I've been freaking out unnecessarily over a warning indicator that I thought was the oil, but in fact was a bulb indicator. After doing the standard swap dance with all the bulbs, the warning indicator still lit up. With the best of intentions, the service advisors try swapping the most commonly failing parts, but they are shooting in the dark. When sampling the low-hanging fruit fails to deliver customer satisfaction, it is time to jack the bike into the computer diagnosticator.

Seems to me that the technicians are prettry good at dealing with the mechanical stuff, but the computer chips that are embedded in modern bikes can flummox the best mechanic. If the computer diagnostic tool can't find a fault, they just shrug their shoulders. As a fellow worker in high-tech, I understand completely. As a consumer, I do expect a better result. A friend who has a high-performance car tells me that it's the same story when he brings his baby to dealer because the check-engine light is illuminated. Is there an up and coming backlask against highly computerized vehicles?

* * *

Racing phenomenon Valentino Rossi's book, "What If I Had Never Tried It" arrived in the mail today. I read the first chapter and realized that if I were to read any more, I would not get any work done today, nor would I get any sleep tonight. I'm trying to save the book for the trip. (smile)

Comments on Books

I snarfed up the Valentino Rossi autobiography in a few days. It is not a literary work, but we weren't expecting that, were we. It reads more like a Discovery Channel documentary. If you are interested in the mind of a successful competitor, then I recommend the book.

If you are interested in the mind, or I should say brain, of the human female, I recommend The Female Brain, by Louann Md Brizendine, M.D. The book was just published (August, 2006).

Dr. Brizendine is a pioneering neuropsychiatrist who brings together years of research and the latest findings to show how the unique structure of the female brain determines how women think, what we value, how we communicate, and who we will love. Brizendine reveals the neurological explanations behind why:

• A woman uses about 20,000 words per day while a man uses about 7,000
• A woman remembers fights that a man insists never happened
• A teen girl is so obsessed with her looks and talking on the phone
• Thoughts about sex enter a woman’s brain once every couple of days but enter a man’s brain about once every minute
• A woman knows what people are feeling, while some men can’t spot an emotion unless somebody cries or threatens bodily harm
• A woman over 50 is more likely to initiate divorce than a man

You do not need a degree in neurophysiology to read this book. The editor did a fantastic job of making the book hard to put down. I bought it, and turned immediately to the last third of the book where she de-mystifies peri-menopause. She builds this section around a question, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife?" While Peter never voiced this question, I've wondered, "Where the heck have you been all this time, and why are you just making an appearance now?"

Women will come away from this book knowing that they have a lean, mean communicating machine. Men will come away with a greater appreciation of the world that their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters live in, or should I say, "why the heck they act that way".

The book has given me insight into why I have taken the quintessential symbol of male rebellion and virility and turned it into a symbol of feminist carpe diem. The book is in hardback only right now. Wait a few months, it should be out in paperback in time for the holidays. I'm planning to give away many copies of this book.

[Addendum on January 3rd, 2007. This book was almost too good to be true, and, sadly, the linguistic claims in it are being challenged by none other than Stanford linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, whose essays air on the NPR Fresh Air program. Click here to hear the commentary, or click here to get to the NPR link, "Linguistic Nonsense".]