There are plans, and then there are… all those other things that actually happen… I plan when I need to or when it makes sense, and I sometimes plan out of habit… Occasionally I’ve already done some planning without even realizing it… Some of all of that happened recently… and all of the events were connected more or less…

It started when I decided to sell my house and move to Florida. Sheeeeesh! Talk about required planning! I could write volumes on that score, but my fingers simply don’t have the stamina… Besides the formidable issues of selling my house and relocating my household goods, there were other onerous chores to coordinate, handle, overcome, work around, figure timing and sequencing of… yadda, yadda…

Among those were the needs to transfer insurance coverages on my vehicles, obtain new titles, get new tags and registrations, and my driver’s license had to be changed, also. Oh joy! Just what a biker gypsy loves to do… stand in long lines, then eventually listen to bureaucrats drone on about this and that, then tell you why they can’t help you until you return with whatever it was that you didn’t anticipate needing…

By the time I’d closed on the old house and had all my personal goods loaded and transferred to my new ‘home’… I needed a road trip bad! Well, some planning would necessarily be involved because of the ticking time bomb… My birthday is in October, so I had what remained of August and the month of September to do any riding I could, then get those other pesky ‘time sensitive’ details all ironed out…

There was also a couple of other rides I wanted to do… The Indiana Ride had already been missed, because I’d been out west at the time. The Fall Color Ride already had me pretty committed, but the BBQ in Prescott had crossed my mind as well, and then JoeValkIS was doing another Missouri FCR, and those are good… and he is a great guy, so I hated it when that didn’t work out. In fact, only the FCR that SmokinJoe hosts ended up attended by yours truly. Well, that and my solo road trip back to the northwest just after my ‘big move adventure’…

See where I’m going with this? Working out all of that, doing the necessary triage to make the priorities fit even at the expense of lesser ranked stuff… mandated some fancy planning. But, I got everything required done, and I still managed to work in some of the ‘nice to haves’… all thanks to careful planning… Yuk!

By the time we pulled away from Robbinsville, everything had been taken care of… well, I still do have a few boxes to unpack back in Florida, but those can wait indefinitely. I’m so relieved! One or two more things to work out… well almost…

Napper had met me for the FCR. Good. Napper is navigationally challenged. Not so good. We’re not just talking about an ordinary affliction here like the one I have, either… I mean, you mention complex concepts to her like north, south, east, or west, and she gets that panicked ‘deer in the headlights’ look… She is more comfortable with things like: Turn left just past the Walmart, or go two red lights that-a-way, then hang a right…

She absolutely hates Interstate Highways and/or big city driving! Traffic of any sort throws her into a three-quarter tizzy; heavy traffic at all, and she immediately retreats to her ‘happy place’. Well, all that complicates travel involving her, so considerable planning is always required… She’s worth it, of course, but still… allowances and accommodations have to be made… and careful planning is unavoidably necessary…

I volunteered to lead her part of the way back to Alabama… When we parted in Rome, GA, I told her, two left turns and you’ll be in Wetumpka… this included the first left turn being out of the parking lot where we were standing. Simple, right?

She managed to make a right turn in there someplace… and… Mercifully I didn’t know about that until after she had worked her way out of that snare and had already found her way home… No action beyond empathy from me was required…

I’m supposed to call Trout Dude in a few days… That is another time factor to figure on… And, I was seriously thinking about still trying to work in the Missouri FCR after all… I called the motel in Missouri to see about vacancies… “We have one room left,” the lady informed me… “the honeymoon suite…” Now if I had an alter ego Like Stanley does with Cletus, I might have considered it, but… I don’t… so, I didn’t…

I then thought maybe I’d ride up to West Virginia. Going to Morehead City, NC, to visit my cousin had already been postponed until Thanksgiving due to flooding and road conditions, so the mountains of WV seemed a sensible alternative…

Once back in the mountains and riding along thinking cool thoughts, another notion sprung forth… Why not get a cabin for a few days in Fontana Village on NC HWY 28 just down the road from the Tail of the Dragon? I haven’t stayed there in many years, and it would be a nice change of pace… WOW!

I rode the Cherohala Parkway across to Robbinsville, turned north (hey Napper, that means I made a left at the stop sign) onto US 129 towards the Dragon… smiling all the way. Yep, I’d figuratively just thumbed my nose at my ‘plan’, and by extension planning generally, and now I was coloring outside the lines again! I just love it when a non-plan comes together…