The Oakie Ice Ride

08:00 Monday

I forgot my sunglasses. Not a disaster because my new Nolan has a built-in "Top Gun" sun shield but it's still irritating. And no rain suit - I couldn't find it and can't remember where I put it.

I'm on the shuttle bus to SeaTac, flying to Oklahoma City to pick up a motorcycle I more or less bought by accident on eBay. Normally, this kind of trip would be a grand adventure, a chance to spend a week doing what I love most: riding a great motorcycle across thousands of miles of gloriously beautiful new country.

But it's February 1 and Oklahoma City is chipping and sanding its way out of an ice storm that hit last a few days ago and still has the city in a beautiful crystalline deep freeze. By tomorrow when I pick the bike up it's forecast to be sunny and 48. But it may not be and there's a wet frontal system due through New Mexico on Wednesday, all of which which makes this ride less of an adventure and more like a graduate course in practical meteorology.

So, given that I may get snowed on for a thousand miles on a motorcycle, maybe forgetting my sunglasses isn't such a big deal.