I Wonder if my Aunt Listens to Guns N' Roses

There was a family reunion this weekend.  Normally I wouldn't even consider going to one of these things but I perseverated about it for several weeks.  As recently as a few days before I was still leaning toward going.  But inaction is the easy default and I stayed home for the three-day weekend.

As part of the reunion, there was a pig roast - which was quite an appealing draw.  It has probably been decades since I have been to a pig roast.  When I was a kid, the church I went to had an annual pig roast.  Living across the street from the church, I would always wander over there shortly after the pit master (I'm not sure if they were called that yet in the 1970's) would get there with the roaster and pig.  The pig would be roasted, complete with apple in mouth.  I would hang around and sometimes get meat presnacks.  But maybe I didn't.
There were several pictures posted on Facebook by a few relatives at the reunion.  I'm glad there were no pictures of a brown roasted pig; that would have increased the angst about not going.

Last weekend there was also a reunited Guns N' Roses concert at Soldier Field.  Slash and Axl back together again.  Unlike the reunion, I never even considered going, even for a picosecond.  I almost went to a Detroit GNR concert in the late 80's.  I didn't go and it was cancelled anyway.  As I recall, the late cancellation caused a near riot.

The Independence Day weekend was a productive one, if slightly dull.  I was able to treat some wood around the house that needed attention and fix my pole barn.  I had one panel of siding on the barn that was slightly mangled in reinstallation haste earlier in the year after replacing some wood that had rotted due to the barn builder's omission of a few pennies worth of caulk; this allowed water to get to the wood above the overhead door, rotting it to structural worthlessness in less than five years.  I was also able to put a small patch over what I am quite certain is a bullet hole in the back of the barn.  I don't see it daily so I'm fine with the patch.  The bullet hole is a little troubling, but I guess someone can hit the broad side of a barn.  In reality, I'm not completely sure it actually was a bullet hole, and even if it was, the projectile had to have come form a very long distance away.

Some of the other reunion pictures posted on Facebook were a good reminder of some of the reasons I didn't want to go to the reunion.  I cringe at the thought of the awkward conversations with uncles and aunts.  I don't suppose most neural-typical people see these family conversations as awkward, but I do.  While I have some fond memories of my slightly judgmental relatives from childhood, at this point they are more like strangers I barely know and have little in common with, other than a few chromosomes.  Perhaps that is because I don't go to the family reunions.

I wonder if any of my uncles listen to Guns N' Roses.  Almost certainly not...

I likely would have enjoyed catching up with some of my cousins - and seeing them as they are today as adults, probably with their own children.  In my memories, they are still the lurchy teenagers we all used to be.  It actually could have been quite unsettling.  My cousin's children look more like my memories of the cousins themselves.
The weather was actually much better seven hours away at the reunion location than it was at home.  It would have been a great excuse for a lot of motorcycle time.  The motorcycle ride home would have been quite wet however, and I am in need of new tires on the Triumph.
I was, quite frankly, wanting a simple weekend after an exhausting week of work, where my job has completed a five month transition.

I'm not sure if not going to the family reunion was the right decision.  But it was a decision.  I rarely look back with regret, but sometimes with zelfmedelijden.

"Just as ancient insects that led full productive lives disappeared without a trace, and those that bumbled into amber and died are still around in tangible form, so our personal failures remain, sharp and clear, long after the day-to-day routine and minor victories fade into nothingness." - Neil Steinberg

YouTube is in Fifth Grade

I recently saw a "retrospective" on YouTube and was quite surprised to learn that it is only 10 years old.  Given how ubiquitous it is, it seems like it should be much older than that - perhaps not as old as the digital watch, but still definitely older than 10 years.
I still recall my first digital watch.  I probably got it some time in the mid to late 1970's.  It was small and square and ugly with rounded corners - sort of like a iPhone is now, so Jobs wasn't the original genius everyone pretends he is.  The LCD display was very small and the functionality was controlled by a single button with an inset set button.  I was pretty proud of it at the time; within a few years it was the kind of watch that was given away in a box of cereal.

The first video uploaded and available for public viewing on YouTube was Me at the Zoo on April 23, 2005.  The retrospective included a sidenote that YouTube's original incantation was as a dating video site.  Perhaps this is related to the origins of YouTube being on Valentines day of the same year.  If true, I'm glad the video dating site concept ended up in the dustbin - although I'm sure that concept exists now.

My initiation to YouTube was probably not too much later than that original video when a friend sent me a link to a video of a guy crashing his new helicopter.  I recall poking around to see what YouTube was, and thought the concept was intriguing.  The over-sharing world was just getting going in 2005 so the immensity of the concept was hard to grasp.  I can't help but wonder what happened to the guy in the helicopter.  The passenger compartment does not seem to have fared very well.

According to currently available statistics, YouTube has about 1 billion users - nearly 1/7th of the world's population and 1/3rd of the internet population.  I'm not sure if this is real, as I have to wonder how many of those are 'bots and how many are people who have multiple user accounts.  I also wonder if that includes unregistered lurkers?  Regardless, there are a lot of people watching YouTube.

There are approximately 500 hours of content uploaded every minute, which means more content is uploaded in 60 hours than was done in 60-years by the big broadcast networks.  This is not entirely true, since much of the network content ends up on the cutting room floor.  Much of the content on YouTube should be as well, and there is a startling amount of redundant material on YouTube as well.  YouTube has done a good job of the democratization of crap.
What gets staggering is the amount of space all these video's take up.  If we assume an hour of video uses about 10GB of space, that means 5TB of data every minute.  Much of the video on YouTube is lower quality and compression is actually much better than this, but even if it takes only 10% of this, the amount of digital space this takes is frightening.  It wasn't that long ago when memory was hundreds of dollars per megabyte and disk space was 10'sof dollars per megabyte.
Again, the democratization of crap.

And I've contributed my own crap to this heap.  My paltry contribution consists of some 30ish videos which have been collectively watched about 1200 times.  Stanley Kubrick I am not.
I've previously maligned the hopeless situation of current copyright law trying to deal with the democratization of crap.  I don't think this situation will be resolved any time soon.  Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton have pledged to take a look at this "from day one!"
Still, the ability to strip the audio off of existing YouTube videos is a great functionality.  I'm sure it would never be used to flagrantly abuse copyright claims.

YouTube video ads are much more intrusive than they used to be, but I guess content owners and Google need to make money somehow.  I'm going to agree with Tim Kreider that Content Creator is a rather vulgar euphemism for creative types.  Another manifestation of the democratization of crap.

So YouTube now brings us full movies and full TV shows ... for a cost.  Along with brethren Hulu and Amazon, no real need to have cable anymore unless sports are critical to watch in real-time.  It is even possible to watch what Family Guy called "The gayest music video of all time" or watch American Dad, um, investigate the Cheetos aisle.

Of course, people like me who are fortunate enough to live in an area so rural that there is no DSL or cable internet access are not fortunate enough to be able to stream gobs of video.  Damn the data caps!  "That should be criminal," screamed the IT guy at work.  I guess this is also a factor of me being cheap, since even if I go over my limit, the cost isn't exactly prohibitive financially.

It is actually pretty hard to imagine a world without YouTube now.  In addition to being entertaining, YouTube is a mechanic, a chef, teacher, maybe even a pilot, but hopefully not like that guy in the helicopter.

Trees

Every year since moving into my current house, I plant a few trees.  Every year a few of them die, either newly planted or seemingly established.
The trees I've planted range from some I've lovingly grown from seeds to a row of arborvitae that have become little more than a mowing headache.  I have quite the emotional attachment to the small paw paw trees grown from seed taken from trees that marked the location of my dog's final resting place.  Happily, they seem to have survived a very late freeze this year, despite loosing some of their new growth.

Sometimes I think I should just give up and grow bush honeysuckle.  I'm quite sure that it would take over the whole world if given the chance; if they ever colonize mars, they should bring that plant along and find a way to turn it into food since I'm sure it would also grow even in Mars' harsh atmosphere.

There is a hazy plan to my planting, with nothing directly in front of the house, evergreens to the west and south, and deciduous to the northeast.  The evergreens are mainly screen trees and wind breaks.  I've lost a few planted by the previous owners and have replaced them.  The newer short guys look to their bigger brethren for inspiration.

Sourcing trees is very troublesome.  What is available at the big box stores is usually pretty disappointing and is expensive for what it is.  I'm not sure where they come from, but I suspect they are grown very far away since once planted they do, at best, tolerably adequate.  I've had even less success with bare root stock delivered by mail order.  Mail order sounds very 1980s.  Should it be called internet order?  Or catalog order?

"Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Playboy combined." - Michael Perry

I sometimes think bare root stock should be called dead root stock.  Even with the success of the arborvitae, I don't think I'll go that route again.  The local Soil and Water District does an annual tree sale.  A few of these have stuck it out, but overall success rates are abysmal.  At least cost is nearly negligible.  There have been some of these that have soldiered on mightily, despite being froze, dug up, eaten by rabbits, etc.  I'll attribute this to being native trees grown nearby.  Most recently, potted trees from local growers are showing some promise.  Prices can be wildly variable, but some of the smaller operations have a lot to choose from for very reasonable prices.

I'm somewhat partial to trees that are native to the area, but will try just about anything that looks hardy.  My deciduous trees are almost all native species, with the exception of a few ginkgo trees; since these were once thought to be an extinct dinosaur from Pangaea, I guess they could be thought of as native to both everywhere and nowhere.

I really love paw paw trees.  I planted several of these at my previous house and once established, they did fantastic, eventually becoming gorgeous large, tropical-looking trees that bore copious amounts of fruit, as long as the flowers didn't freeze in the spring.  They are not quite as happy at the new house, since they do best as an understory tree and the little trees planted in the last few years get too much sun.
In addition to the ginkgos and paw paws, I have sassafrass, maple, oak, peach, and whatever the root stock was after the cherry tree graft died.  I also have one tree that I had given up for dead and now no longer remember what it is - I suspect it is a pecan, but it may be some kind of chestnut.  I'm quite surprised at the difficulty I've had with both the maples and oaks.

This year's deciduous tree additions were a couple buckeye trees.  Buckeyes have quite a taproot (as do paw paws), so they do not transplant well.  But I had little to lose, so I thought I'd try to transplant some from the edge of a nearby field.  There is a small wooded area between two farm fields that had some small trees.  I wasn't sure who owned the ground they were on, but they are in an area that is frequently brush hogged, so I didn't have any qualms about taking them.  Once I decided this, I wanted to get them planted before the end of the spring season, so on an early Sunday morning, I drove down to dig them up.  While doing so, I realized that I had made a situation that was assuredly perfectly acceptable with permission look preposterously suspect instead:  On the edge of a field in the wee hours of the morning digging up some "plants."  As expected the transplanted trees died exceedingly quickly.  Shortly thereafter, I bought some yellow buckeyes from a local nursery and again found myself looking like I was engaged in questionable behavior.  I picked up the trees and drove home with them inside the cab of my truck, since I didn't want the tree to be horrendously ripped apart by the wind on the 50 mile trip home.  Any idea what buckeye leaves could look like to Joe LawEnforcement if they aren't familiar with them?

So far, these buckeye trees are doing well.

Planting trees often seems pointless.  So many of them die; best intentions, even with water, do not sustain botanical life.  What I do hope, is that over time enough of them will survive.  Trees grow stealthily, never changing size during day to day monotony, but little by little inch their way up.  My kingdom will never be one Roger Cook would be proud of, and this is OK.  Hopefully I'll pull into my driveway some day and realize that I have my own mini unkempt forest.

"No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods - it was so simple, really.  "I didn't for a long time, but I do now.  You just can't hold people, you can't own them.  I mean it's only natural, a natural process really.  Meet.  Love.  Part.  Life goes on.  There was never any reason to expect her to stay always the same - I mean 'in love,' you know."  There were those doubt-quotes of Smoky's heavily indicated.  "I don't hold a grudge.  I can't."
"You do," Grandfather Trout said.  "And you don't understand."
     - From Little, Big by John Crowley

Dust Devil

I took advantage of the warm dry Memorial Day weekend to ride the bicycle.  Sunday was a long ride down to the river; returning home meant a punishing but rewarding altitude climb.  Monday was a ride with no particular destination or route - just a meandering that was almost as much mental as it was physical.
Monday's ride took me through rural areas in Indiana, down many little-used roads.  The air was less humid than the previous few days, with the sun rapidly heating up the morning.  While headed north on a narrow farm road, I saw something I hadn't seen in quite some time.  A dust devil rolled from west to east.  After crossing the road in front of me, it picked up some of last year's corn husks and carried them over a recently-planted field before disappearing in a vibrantly green wheat field.  I stopped riding, taking time to watch the dust devil.  I wondered for a few seconds how a dust devil forms, but put the thought out of my mind and just lived the sight of it in the undisturbed morning.

Vacation is months away, but planning can allow the vacation to begin long before it actually does.  Hopeful stops can be estimated and potential routes planned.  All this early planning can then be scrapped, with new ideas.  Planning helps build anticipation and creates stamina for the painful monotony of the weekly routine before vacation actually happens.  Mentally, this means vacation is already starting.
The vacation will be a road trip to the Northwest; I was last through the area in 2012, so it hasn't been that long, but I love the big empty and how it slowly builds to the mountains and falls away to the coast.
I reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig as just about any route I look at will spend some time in the same areas that the author talks about in that book.  This makes my third reading of it; there are very few books that I've read more than once - let alone three times.  Each time, I pull new things out of the book, and remember previous highlights that I've failed to do anything with.  On my first reading, I liked the parts about the journey, but the philosophical parts could be hard to wade through.  Since I'm now more familiar with the storyline, I find myself more interested in the philosophy and slightly frightened that the author's mental train and non sequiturs can at times be so similar to my own.  The metaphysics can still be a painful slog in some places.  I'm not sure if I have my own Phaedrus, but we all have ghosts.

"The Buddha resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain."

Among the things I look forward to when traveling are those times when I realize I'm so completely in the moment, unconscious of time, and existing in reality; as well as being completely separated, both mentally and physically, from the normal issues of work or the daily mayhem.  Time seems to stand still and pass quickly simultaneously.  I'm not sure what people who meditate are going for, but I bet it is something like that.  I'm also not sure meditating in the scripted sense will work for everyone, but riding for miles on a motorcycle, sitting in a hunting stand or riding a bike can supply some form of Zen - if accompanied by the right mental state.

"The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

Before I saw the dust devil, I was thinking about the upcoming vacation.  Between that and the extra day off of work, I guess I was in the right mental place.  However briefly, life made a little more sense watching that dust devil wander by on Memorial Day.

A few days later, I looked up online how dust devils are formed.  I wish I hadn't done that - Google has made it so we can almost always get too much information quickly, and then discard it like last year's corn husks.  I'm not sure information naturally creates comprehension.  And just watching the dust devil should have remained sufficient.

Is it worth it?

Today, I'm a virgin talking about sex because I've never climbed a mountain.
That isn't entirely true, since I've hiked up a few in the Smokies in Tennessee or in the Wasatch range in Utah.  But I've never had crampons on my feet, never been in the "death zone" and never held bottled oxygen in my hands outside of a laboratory environment.

Mount Everest is in the news since May is typically "climbing season" on the mountain, with brief windows of good weather before the monsoon season starts.  There is also a short window in the fall, but this is much less active with unique risks.
Like a lot of people, I was introduced to Mount Everest, beyond the romantic knowledge of it being the highest point on earth, by Jon Krakauer's excellent book Into Thin Air.  Jon's writing is engaging, making a reader vicariously experience things that will never be participated in.  His books take a lot of flak from purists, many claim he writes more fiction than non.  To those people, I point to a different sort of purist who proudly proclaims that Everest isn't even the tallest point on earth due to a technicality of physics.

The purists of any pastime do their best to denigrate anyone outside of their personal narrow window:  You aren't a REAL Alpinist unless you {insert sanctimonious requirement here}.
I've read several other books by Krakauer, and his tale of Chris McCandless is also riviting; it was really this book which allows Chris immortality.  Sean Penn is an asshole, but PBS's documentary is worth watching.  Both idealism and degeneracy seem fun when young, but they are hard to keep up as a life time occupation.  If McCandless hadn't died in a bus, he'd most likely be driving a minivan full of kids around the suburbs somewhere.

I do sometimes wonder if Krakauer's Into Thin Air would have been as monumental if it didn't end up being a very tragic year on Mount Everest.  If hundreds of people climbed with minimal deaths, the book may have had to stretch the truth to be as engrossing.  The many interpretations of the events from that year demonstrate that there are several realities to almost every situation, and a lack of oxygen creates even more.
Two parts of the story seem permanently stuck in my memory.  There is the visual of Sandy Pittman (now Hill) being short-roped up the mountain by a Lopsang Sherpa, meaning she paid a fantastic amount of money to be dragged up the mountain, as much as she climbed it.  The second was when Rob Hall was asked about the condition of climber Doug Hansen, he simply responded, "Hansen is gone."  Such a short, tragic euphemism.
I admire people with the determination to pursue the pinnacle of a hobby such as mountaineering, but the images of crowds of people at base camp or heading up make it exceedingly unattractive - the National Parks of mountain climbing.  Unquestionably this increases the risk which should come primarily from the feat itself, not from other two-legged animals.  The unfathomable ability for the Sherpa to do what they do with little in the way of compensation or recognition is commendable - far more so than even the soul-crushing destructive power of office work.

The cost of Everest is also frightening, where a permit may be the equivalent of ten thousand dollars, with total costs for some approaching $100k.  I am probably more envious of people who take on the lesser-knowns, but in a more contemplative environment.  There have been some 7000 people who have climbed Everest, which is low by people who have stood on one small spot on earth, but it is still a crowded mountain top.  It has since been removed, but an enlightening video previously on YouTube showed a French dude on the summit, talking absolute gibberish.  His post-commentary suggests he thought he was being completely coherent when the video was shot and it was only after reviewing the video at a later time and lower altitude that he realized how close to death he probably was.  Many write that the trip down claims more lives than up.
And Everest has had its share of death, with approximately 286 taking their final frigid breaths.

The four most recent deaths (as of 2016-5-23) occurred this year with a Sherpa, a Dutch Climber, an Australian and an Indian.  The fate of a few more are still in question (since confirmed dead).

Jon Krakauer writes extensively about the risk of death on Mount Everest and that "there is no morality on the mountain" - lots of armchair climbers criticize this, but rescuing bodies always has lower priority over the living.  Witness the cancelling of a search for a person who fell off a cruise ship in the comparatively placid Gulf of Mexico.

The dead on Everest can achieve some level of immortality, maybe even more so than if they become one of the 7000+ who summit.  The dead on Everest have their own Wikipedia page.  Green Boots, became a landmark, before he vanished.  The Rainbow Valley is so named for all of the brightly colored remnants in one particularly treacherous spot.

I only partially comprehend the allure of Everest over the quest of mountaineering in general, but understand the more philosophical personal journey.  The motivation toward a new personal experience shouldn't be diminished.  I've read that George Mallory's "Because it's there." quote wasn't a proud chest thumping attempt at being profound, which is how it is interpreted today, but was more a paternalistic response to an annoying member of the press.  I hope that is true.
Whether life becomes more real after a solo climb up K2 without supplemental oxygen, or after being short-roped up Denali shouldn't be for a virgin talking about sex to deliberate.  With 7000 summits, climbing Mount Everest won't be anyone's ticket to fame and glory.  If that is the hope, failure is predetermined.  But if any quest is taken to further live the reality that much of what makes life worth living involves risk, then maybe mortality becomes ever so slightly more palatable.

The Terminator Is Talking on the Phone

I'm in a job transition right now, working 50% of the time in two separate locations.  Nobody bothered to get me a phone at my new location, and I hope nobody notices so that I don't have to get one.

I HATE THE TELEPHONE!

I know I'm not alone in this.  It is a characteristic of many people on the introverted side of the bell curve.  When I see people sauntering down the sidewalk yakking on the phone, or driving down the interstate doing the same, I'm almost baffled by this.  I would actually find it more understandable to see a person lick road kill off of the road, as that has about on the same level of revulsion as chit-chat on the phone.
Maybe that is a slight exaggeration; there are times at work where a 5 minute conversation can take the place of awful email chains or long-winded instant messages.  But that is often just making up for incompetence.  The only thing that is worse than a phone call is a conference call as it amplifies the negatives of telephone conversation.  The awkward pauses.  The repeated attempts for multiple people to start talking at once.  The reality of the best interrupter being the most prominent, sometimes only, voice on the phone.

Part of my distaste for phone conversations is that it does not allow for thinking before speaking, and the world already has entirely too much talking without thinking.  The phone takes away facial and body cues that are so important to real communication.  Video telephony somehow makes this worse, not better.  I think this is because there is still latency in the speech, and the video and audio are always slightly asynchronous.

Even worse than the phone conversation is talking to a fucking computer on the phone.  I understand the automated call menus.  Humans are expensive and automating the route to (hopefully) the right place makes sense.  I'm not sure why I have to answer the same questions if I do finally end up with a human on the other end of the phone, yet I'll accept that.  But ... and this is a big But ... while I'm perfectly happy to interact with the computer on the other end by pressing touch-tone buttons, my skin crawls when I must speak to the computer on the other end.  It is creepy.  It is dehumanizing in an Orwellian way.  It is A Brave New World's baby in a jar.  If I could find a way, I would get these automated systems to talk to each other in an endless loop so as not to be subjected to them.  One of the reasons I was exceedingly happy to dump DirecTV was that the only way to get help that was not available online was by starting the phone call talking to a DirecTV computer; there was no button pushing option.  Please, just give me the road kill to lick.
If the promise of artificial intelligence is heading in the direction of more speaking to computers, sign me up for a shack in the middle of nowhere in Montana.  Some time ago I was in a casino and saw one of those automated and full-body animated blackjack systems.  I watched it for a few minutes as the Barbie-esque cartoon character stood there forlornly with no one to deal to.  Her come-hither look and repetitive animated gestures promised the dystopian future that was imagined by every 1980s action movie.  We have arrived and the Terminator is a here - she is conquering the world, apparently gamblers first.

I recognize some people hate email, but at least it allows for thought before communicating.  Once I de-emoticonned my life, I realized the few extra minutes it takes to write clearly and succinctly is time well spent.
Text messages and Instant Messaging are great for informal conversations or short information.

But at some point the reality will have to be addressed, when did all these supposed advances in communication technology begin to take away what they tried to deliver?

What Started It All

The company I work for makes me use any of the previous year's leftover vacation by the end of April.  This normally means I have some time off at the end of April.  In  addition to getting things done around the house for spring, I often use this time for a quick motorcycle trip somewhere.  This year is one of the first in a long time where I don't have that "forced" time off, and I kind of miss it.  But I'm happier still that this means I've used (at least) more of my 2015 vacation.

The leftover vacation from 2015 was used going to Hawaii.  Of the many things done while there, I rented a motorcycle, completing a goal to ride through all 50 states.
It may be wrong, but I see riding a motorcycle through all 50 states as an accomplishment.  I won't look down on anyone who trailers their bike, but trailers are for broken bikes; tugging a bike to a location to ride is a vacation with bike.  "To and Through" is a motorcycle tour.  This does, of course, mean Hawaii will always have an asterisk after it since I chose the practical route of renting a bike there.
I sometimes look back and laugh at my first year of motorcycle touring now.  My first trip was short and very wet, and I really didn't know what I was in for.

I sold my Harley Davidson 1200 Sportster and bought a Superglide T-Sport specifically because I wanted to start touring.  I promptly hit a deer with it, but this didn't change any of my resolve to try touring.  That next spring the planning started to take the T-Sport to a rafting trip to West Virginia's New River.  Compared to today, there was a copious amount of planning for such a short bike trip, all of 300 miles.  And I was nervous; maybe nervous isn't the right word - anxious, aware, apprehensive excited...

As the weekend of the trip approached, the weather forecast looked bleak, and continued to deteriorate.  A cold front was coming through bringing rain and rain with some rain.  On the morning to depart, the weather radar painted a wide swath of green over much of the area.  Knowing I was deluding myself, I decided it looked like it wasn't too bad and would probably clear up sooner than meteorologists were predicting.
The T-Sport was a great bike, but the bags were only slightly weather resistant, and the T-Bag I used on the luggage rack didn't even pretend to keep water out.  While we had motorcycle rain gear, our overall preparedness for heavy weather was lacking.
Still, reality be damned, off we went.

We left in light rain and got around the first big city.  Exiting the interstate, the rain picked up quickly.  After an hour or so of riding in heavy rain, I was tense; I had the death grip on the motorcycle's grips and my back muscles ached.
The rain continued.
By this point we were in rural Ohio, but every small town seemed like an obstacle course.  For all my planning, I didn't have clear-lens glasses and I couldn't see well with the dark clouds and obscuring water.  Cars and trucks threw huge volumes of water all over everything.  My boots were not waterproof and my feet were freezing.
The rain continued.
Water was ponding in the low lying areas and I wasn't sure how much was too much for my bike's tires.  I pulled over a few times to let cars pass, knowing I was going slower than many car drivers wanted to.  It was too wet to pull out my photocopied maps (this was pre-GPS), so I was unsure if I was even on the right road some of the time.
The rain continued.

Somewhere around the half way point, I pulled into a parking area at the Shawnee State Forest.  This was a largely unimproved area, but there was a very small shelter there - with several inches of water covering the paved floor.  I felt absolutely defeated; I wondered if I was not cut out for the adventure of touring on two wheels.  We were too far to turn around and go home, but I just couldn't imagine continuing on through the relentless rain to the destination.
I noticed something under the water and pulled a large plug of leaves from a drain in the paved floor, water quickly started running down the drain, at least freeing us from standing in water.  If ever so slightly, our situation had improved.  Walking back to the bike and pulling out the damp maps, I made a plan:  Continue on across the Ohio River into West Virginia, find a hotel and get up early the next morning to get to the rafting camp.
Getting back on the bike was not an enticing option, but it was the only choice.
I didn't realize it at the time, but lessons were being learned about touring by motorcycle.
Be flexible.
Every piece of gear matters.
Be prepared to ride in ANY weather.

We continued on through the rain, and crossed the state line into West Virginia.  As we did so, something unexpectedly amazing happened.  The skies dramatically cleared to big puffy clouds and blue sky and it was much warmer.  Rather than stopping or staying on 2-lane roads, I took advantage of the break in the weather and jumped on the interstate, high-tailing it to the campground.
The weather remained blessedly good for the remainder of the day.  There were friends and beer waiting at the campground.  I think it rained again that night, but by that point I was drunk and in a relatively dry tent.

Rafting the next day was fun, although more fun in retrospect than it was at the time.  Our rafting guide nearly flipped us at the first big rapids and I got thrown from the boat.  I wasn't worried about drowning, but after getting back into the raft, I was terrified of something happening that would prevent a safe return home on two wheels.  If I had gotten twisted up on a rock and suffered even a mild sprained ankle, getting both myself and the bike home could become a near impossibility.

Leaving early the next morning, it was cold.  It was cold, cold.  And SO didn't have cold weather gloves.  We ended up stopping at a gas station convenience store and purchasing leather work gloves, which worked for the trip home ... sort of.  We occasionally look back and laugh about those grey work gloves.
Despite the cold, the trip home was wonderful and began to cement my love of motorcycle touring.  Clear skies and riding through some of the most wonderful early summer scenery on little-traveled rural roads was amazing.  At some point I realized that the trip home was all the more extraordinary because of the difficult trip into West Virginia two days previous.

Later that summer, we took another motorcycle trip - this one a multi-day trip through several states.  It was also during a very wet period, but we were slightly better prepared, thanks to lessons during our first trip to West Virginia.

I didn't realize it at the time, but that much rain has actually been rare in the many tens of thousands of miles traveled by motorcycle since.  There have been all-day rains and periods of torrentially bad weather, but a steady improvement in gear and abilities makes inclement weather more tolerable, sometimes even a fun interlude during a trip.

That first trip will always be special.  A trip of that length now would be done with very little planning.  But I miss the anxious excitement and nervous anticipation, paradoxically enjoying motorcycle touring more than ever.
I would never have believed during that first summer that a very wet one-day trip would eventually lead to adventures traveling through all 50 states.