Picto Diary - 08 to 13 October 2021 - Gold Wing

Above: Great Salt Lake wetlands. Salt Lake City International Airport. 09 October 2021.

Today marks my first air travel in 22 months. I'm flying today from Salt Lake City to Pasco, WA to pick up a 2021 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle that I purchased while visiting Walla Walla, WA a couple of weeks ago.

I've resisted air travel, not so much for fear of contracting a disease, but for my dislike of mask protocols set forth by the airlines. Apart from the fact that the mask is a nuisance to wear, the science doesn't support its use. It pains me to see Americans going along with social control by tyrants in the name of public health.

I haven't stopped travel... just airline travel. We have 25 thousand miles on the Sprinter since November of 2020 visiting such far flung destinations as Marfa, TX, Little Rock, AR, Rochester, MN, Telluride, CO, and Seattle, WA.

Still, what can I say.... wearing a mask on the Pasco flight is a small sacrifice to make to do a 600 mile motorcycle ride on a new bike over the next two days.

Today, therefore, was my first visit to the new Salt Lake City International Airport. I had heard horror stories about how far passengers had to walk from check-in to gate. My gate, 28 B concourse, required the farthest walk currently possible. I didn't mind it. I need the exercise. I had seen further walks, check-in to gate... New Delhi airport comes to mind. To be sure, if you are departing from Salt Lake City, allow for more time at the airport due to the longer walk.

Above: Columbia River, Pasco, WA. 09 October 2021.

Mr. Hood can be discerned in the distance.

Above: Bishop. USA Honda. Walla Walla, Washington. 09 October 2021.

Sitting on my newly purchased Gold Wing. My argument for purchasing this bike was to replace the 17 year old, worn out, BMW K1200 LT that I had to jettison last month. TIMDT has hinted that she was ready to do another ride on a luxury touring bike, one being serendipitously available at the Walla Walla Honda dealer, when we were up there a few weeks ago, I made, once again, one of my famous impulse purchases. Kudos to Walla Walla resident John Galt, also a Gold Wing owner, who nudged me in this direction by making a stop at the Honda dealership on our wine tasting tour a few weeks ago. After this image was captured around 2:30 PM, I would ride 250 miles to Nampa, ID to spend the night. I arrived at dusk and stayed in a Best Western. Dinner at a Mex-rant (sic), a two mile round trip walk from the motle (sic) in the dark.

Note: It is true that over the years I've been more prone to ride European made motorcycles... Beemers and Ducs. But, the new 'Wing is not the first Honda motorcycle I owned. Circa 2010, over a three year period, I owned a Honda VTX cruiser. I owned a Harley back in the day... circa 2003 to 2004. I rode it from Miami to Park City. On that October ride I started in warm weather and didn't prepare adequately for riding in the cold. One morning in Dodge City, Kansas I awoke to below freezing temperatures. I had little more than an armored, but, summer weight riding jacket and a t-shirt. I donned all the shirts I had with me... six or seven t-shirts and snipped holes in socks to augment the summer gloves I was wearing.

Above: Rendu. 620 miles. Walla Walla to Park City. 10 October 2021.

Yesterday I arrived in Pasco around 12:30 PM. John Galt picked me up in Pasco, had a sandwich ready, and we drove an hour to USA Honda in Walla Walla. Ted and Erich were there to hand over the bike. Used a $45 three day Washington trip pass so as to get the bike registered in Utah, thereby avoiding Washington sales tax, 2% higher than Utah.

My PM ride over Blues on I-84 was in 55 degrees to 58 degrees in sunshine. Bike has grunt in all gears. Smooth , but, firm suspension. Couldn't find ambient temperature guage. Don’t want to futz too much with controls while riding at 80 mph, so, I'll wait until I get home for a self tutorial with the owner's manual. 2019 'Wing owner, John Galt gave me a briefing on the basics at USA Honda. Very helpful.

Today's riding temperature in low 50's and partly sunny.. I was wearing t shirt, a Pendleton wool shirt, an LL Bean down liner, and a Klim riding jacket. Notwithstanding, I was chilled on arrival and spent twenty minutes in a hot shower at home.

Even if I couldn't find the 'Wing's outdoor temperature gauge, much of the rest was idiot proof eg. Cruise control, riding mode, ignition, lock, accessory management.

Drums was hanging out with Granny when I arrived home; Freddie was on the deck playing with Drums' dogs, Tucker and Daphne; and, neighbor, Jim, was on the front porch digging TIMDT's geraniums out if the flower pot to keep them from dying in freezing temperatures expected the next couple of nights.

Second day (today), 370 miles, break/gas stops in Eden, ID and Brigham City, UT.

Yesterday was my first air travel since January of 2020. Flight left forty minutes late because of baggage handling labor shortage, or so said the pilot.

Above: "The Book of Eli," starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis and Jennifer Beals. Ivins, UT. 13 October 2021.

I watched this 2010 produced movie again... maybe, for the fourth time. The movie is a cautionary tale about the importance of Western Culture underpinnings to Western civilizational success. The movie conveys the timely message that tyranny fills the vacuum left by taking down the framework which buttresses American liberty.

Setting for the film is post apocalyptic western America thirty years after an undescribed conflict that left America with no central authority. Post apocalyptic survivors foster a new generation that is illiterate and knows only despotism which is exercised locally by mini-dictators in small concentrations of population. The surviving old timers are literate and have memories of the world before.

A strange man, Eli (Washington) walks alone, west, through the desolation. Resulting from his meeting isolated groups of brigands, we learn that Eli has superior self defense capabilities. He carries a machete, a pistol, and a shot gun. At one point, channeling Jack Reacher, he takes out six thugs at one time. He resists confrontations when he can, but fights if he has to, He is on a mission of some kind.

Eli, an educated, pre-crisis figure, comes upon a run down town. The battery is down on the device he uses to listen to music. He finds a "fix it" shop, barters payment with a jacket he is carrying in his pack, and waits while his battery is charged. Eli needs water. He enters a bar to get his water bottle replenished and cannot avoid being assaulted by thugs who work for the self styled leader of the town, Carnegie (Oldman), also a literate, pre "event" survivor.

Carnegie loves to read books. He sends his otherwise illiterate thugs out, via motorcycles... via vans... into the torpid, decayed landscape to retrieve books. There is one book Oldman wants more than any other. The Bible. Why? All Bibles were destroyed during the event Carnegie believes, that if he can possess a copy of the Bible, its transformational message will increase his ability to wield power not just over his rag tag town, but, over other towns as well.

We learn that Eli's mission is to bring a copy of the Bible to an undisclosed destination in the West.

Carnegie observes Eli's incredible fighting skills as Eli dispatches the thugs who accosted him in the bar. Carnegie considers Eli as a potential employee to carry out his territorial designs. Failing to impress Eli with his job offer, Carnegie puts Eli under house arrest of sort. Eli acquiesces to Carnegie's restraint because Carnegie promises him that he would only be held for a day and that he would give him a surfeit of water on departure. A woman, Solana (Mila Kunis), is sent to Eli's room overnight to sweeten the pot of Carnegie's job offer. Eli resists the temptation. But, Solana, grateful that Eli doesn't kick her out of the room, observes Eli reading the Bible. She is curious. Next day, when Solana reports to Carnegie, she talks about Eli and his book. The cat is out of the bag. Eli has the very book sought by Carnegie.

Carnegie, by brute force, more force than it would take to subdue a normal man, obtains Eli's Bible. Eli is left in the desert to die. Solana, back tracks to see to Eli's well being and finds him walking west, continuing on his mission. Why is he continuing his mission without the book, Solana wonders? Fearing retribution from Carnegie, Solana accompanies Eli on his mission west.

Solana and Eli arrive at Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Scenes of San Francisco show an empty, dilapidated, run-down, uninhabited city.

The people at Alcatraz are part of a special group whose purpose is to rebuild American/Western Civilization. They have most of the old books... Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Milton... but, they don't have the most important one... the Bible.

Eli completes his mission by dictating, from memory, the entire contents of the Bible to scribes at Alcatraz. Not only did Eli have amazing fighting ability, it appears he had been blind, but, somehow, pertaining to his mission, been given supra normal capacities to overcome his blindness. After completing his transcription of the Bible from memory, Eli succumbs to his wounds. Solana, departs Alcatraz carrying Eli's machete. Is she now on her own mission to advance cultural renewal?

The film flashes back to Carnegie's town showing Carnegie unlocking the Bible he has taken from Eli. Carnegie finds that Eli's Bible is written in brail... and of no use to him. Carnegie still has hope. Solana's mother, Claudia (Jennifer Beals) is his consort. She is blind. She can translate the brail! But, because of Carnegie's mistreatment of Solana, Claudia refuses to translate... at the cost of her life.

Why do I like this movie? Because it links the Bible to the success of Western Culture. As today's cancel culture moves to destroy aspects of our past they deem as flawed, including the Bible, it is critical that we try to understand what will replace what we are destroying. "The Book of Eli," is prescient, in my view, about what will fill the cultural vacuum left by eliminating understanding of our past. And, it is not good.