I’ve spent a bit of time using Google Maps and/or MapQuest to plan my scoot route. I start by just asking for a route from State Park A to State Park B, with the “no highways” box checked, then go in and pull that line off all the minor highways Google is still drawn to, onto more scooter-friendly roads. The problem is that this can produce some rather complex navigation instructions. I can’t memorize every street I’m supposed to go half a mile on, which one to turn onto next, etc.

In theory, I’ll have all of this info in the palm of my hand, via the cellular internet connection of my iPhone. But there are a few problems with that. First, I won’t have the phone in my hand while riding. Using a phone while driving a car is hazardous enough; doing it on a scooter – where you really should keep both hands on the handlebars, and where dropping the phone means certain damage (or worse) as it clatters along on the pavement behind you rather than just slipping under the car seat – is even worse. Second, even if I did have it in hand, the iPhone doesn’t work with gloves on, and really requires two hands to manipulate. Third, there’s no guarantee that I’ll actually have a usable AT&T data signal at any given point on the route.

So I need some alternative method of figuring out where I am and where I’m going.

Years ago I bought a road atlas of the US that includes a two-page map of Michigan, and this has served me well for most of my travels around the state. But the level of detail it includes is based on the usual automotive drive-by navigation, sticking to roads whose names are numbers.

A friend of mine has a TomTom GPS unit that he’ll let me borrow for this. It can be charged by the 12V outlet on my scooter, which is handy. I haven’t tested it outside of the city, but it should solve the coverage problem of the iPhone, so it’ll be able to locate me pretty much anywhere. Its options for specifying the kind of route to take are more flexible than Google’s (e.g. you can set a maximum speed), but it can’t follow a user-customised route taking the most scenic route instead of the shortest or fastest, so I don’t think it’ll work for turn-by-turn directions.

I might also use Google to print off a “map of the day” for each leg of the trip. That might cover a small enough area to include all the relevant roads in the region (including names) so that I can figure out where I am when I (inevitably) miss a turn. I might also print off a list of directions and tape it to my handlebars, so I can (try to) follow it as I go, rather than relying on my increasingly fickle memory.

And I guess if all else fails, I can stop and ask someone for directions.

At the risk of turning this into a movie blog, I want to mention another movie relevant to my trip: Up, the latest masterpiece from Pixar. The adverts tell you the basic premise: a brusque old man launches his house into the air with balloons, and with an earnest young tag-along, has a great adventure.

But like any Pixar feature, there’s much more to the story than the plot summary. You see, Carl Fredricksen wasn’t always a solitary old man; he had a childhood friend who became his soulmate Ellie, and together they dreamed of the adventure they would have together. But the unavoidable complications of life got in the way, and then the unavoidable complication of her death did. If you and the person you love are still together, this movie is a reminder not to put things off so long that you don’t get a chance to do them together; for others (like me) for whom that’s too late, it’s an encouragement not to let that loss stop you from doing it anyway.

But again, there’s another level to the story. In the end Carl needs to let Ellie and their dream go, and begin his own adventure. Without her. I’m trying to do that. I’m sure Andy would have loved scootering around Lake Michigan with me, and I wish to God we could take the trip together. Or even just sit together on our (perfectly stationary) front porch. But we can’t. So what do I do now? I don’t know. But maybe a scoot by myself around Lake Michigan is part of it.

I may be old, but I was way too young to see Easy Rider when it was in theaters back in ’69. (The Love Bug was more my speed.) But it’s a legendary, landmark piece of cinema, one of the key films of the post-studio/pre-blockbuster era of the 1970s, and it’s about guys on a road trip riding motorbikes, so I figured I should see it before my ride.

The movie stars Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as Wyatt and Billy (think “Earp” and “the Kid”), bikers who smuggle some coke into the U.S. and sell it to Phil Spector, then set out from L.A. toward Florida, where they plan to live on the money they’ve made from the deal. Various things happen along the way, and something big happens right at the end, but that’s really the “plot” of the movie. What the movie is “about” is them and the people they encounter. These include a hippie hitchhiking to his commune, an alcoholic ACLU lawyer (Jack Nicholson), a couple Nawlins prostitutes, and a variety of “regular folk” (both decent and not).

Billy and Wyatt are the subject of both fascination and hostility for their “long hair” and scruffy appearance, which seems a little bizarre by today’s standards. It would never cross my mind to accuse shaggy, mustached Dennis Hopper of looking like a girl, and Peter Fonda’s haircut looks downright conservative to me. Not a body piercing, or tat to be seen. As one of their two-wheeling kin, I find it fascinating that these motorcycle-riding characters were once an archetype of menace to society. Maybe if they’d driven scooters instead of choppers…

Anyway, I suspect I’ll turn some heads along the way, but presumably in amusement, not fear and loathing.

I commented previously about the question of which photo gear to bring with me: the digital all-in-one with the huge storage capacity, or the 35mm SLR with nicer controls and an assortment of lenses from 24mm-500mm. I’ve solved that dilemma by getting a new camera that pretty closely covers both bases.

It’s the Olympus SP-570UZ, a recent descendant of my 5-year-old digital camera (the SP-500UZ). I got it used but in like-new condition from B&H Photo, one of the big New York City camera stores, paying $289 (with shipping) for a customer-returned camera that routinely sells for $400-450. Deal.

The 570UZ doubles the zoom range of the old 500UZ, to 20X. At the wide end, it equals a 26mm lens on a traditional SLR, which is almost as good as my 24mm, and at the long end, it equals a 520mm, which actually surpasses my 500mm mirror lens! The 500UZ’s zoom range starts at 38mm, which in my opinion is not a “wide angle”. I was never even happy with the 28mm that most experienced photogs use as their wide lens (which is why I went with a 24mm), so I consider this a huge improvement. And as long as you have a way to deal with camera shake, you can never have too long a telephoto.

Speaking of which, one shortcoming of the 500UZ (even when it was new) was the lack of image stabilization, which is a technology that’s possible with digital cameras and very helpful when using a lightweight camera with a long telephoto lens. The 570UZ has it, and with just the little bit of experimentation I’ve done with it, I’m amazed at how sharp the results are, even with a long zoom and a fairly slow shutter speed. I always used to take pride in being able to do 1/15 sec. with a 50mm lens, and this camera just did a pretty sharp 300mm shot at 1/10!

One of the reasons I got the 500UZ instead of one of the other 10X cameras available back then was the fact that (unlike most non-SLR digitals) it wasn’t stuck on “auto everything”. I’ve never liked autofocus (slow and subject to error), and I’m used to selecting exposure parameters myself, and Olympus’ SP line lets you do things manually… after a fashion. Unfortunately, on the 500UZ that’s done by poking at buttons and switches, and watching a read-out on the display instead of twisting controls on the lens, like God obviously intended. The 570UZ changes that… or at least it tries to. It has a ring around the lens that controls a servo to zoom the lens in and out. That’s better than just pushing alternately on “wide” and “tele”, but it’s still not direct control, and it has a bit of lag, which is annoying. It also doesn’t stop when you reach the end, which feels weird. Then when you put the camera on manual focus (which is now a simple switch rather than something you have to find in the on-screen menu, thank you) you can use that same ring to focus (almost) like a real SLR! Unfortunately, it takes an ungodly amount of cranking to get from infinity to close up. Still awkward, but it’s better.. and I’ll take “better”. I just wish they’d get over this digitally-controlled-motor fetish and do manual focus and zoom like an SLR does it.

The 570UZ is noticeably bigger than the 500UZ in every dimension, to the point of being nearly the size of a 35mm SLR with a large standard lens. And when zooming in, the lens extends rather indecently. 🙂 That’s unfortunate, but it was inevitable with the more complicated zoom lens on this model. It’s still much smaller than a full 35mm kit with lenses would be, which is important when packing everything into the modest storage space of a scooter. And it’s self-contained.

They upped the sensor to 10Mpixels instead of 6Mp, which I don’t really need, but it’s nice to have if I want it. There are also some other new features in the 570UZ, but most of them are gee-whiz bits of artificial-intelligence that I don’t have any use for (e.g. a mode that detects when the subject smiles and snaps the picture at that instant). In effect, I paid just under $100 each to: upgrade the zoom range, add stabilization, and get better controls. (And that’s before selling the old camera.)

The biggest remaining question is what to do about snapshots. I won’t be able to ride with the 570UZ around my neck, and it can be a little time-consuming to start up and slow to adjust, so I’ll want something handy and quick for those oh-quick-look-now moments. I have my decade-old fully-automatic 1.3Mp 3X zoom Olympus D-460, which will fit OK in a jacket pocket. Or there’s the Aiptek PenCam I picked up for $15 on a whim a few years ago. It’s the equivalent of my first store-brand 110 point-and-click back in the 70s: barely tolerable quality, but idiot proof. It’s small and light enough to wear around my neck under my jacket.