I got off to kind of a shaky start this morning. I almost headed off on M119 with an empty gas tank (which would not have ended well). But I noticed before I got far, and turned around to fill up. That was an awkward situation because the place I stopped was a full-service station… but I had to do the actual filling myself because the kid attending me wouldn’t know where to stop. So I paid a few cents extra for the convenience of him walking my credit card inside to pay. Then in the fluster of dealing with this awkward transaction, I put my gloves in the “wrong” place, and I was briefly afraid I’d lost them because they weren’t where I always put them when I take them off.
As anyone who has ever lived or worked with me knows, I do not suffer from OCD. My home and my office are both… chaotic. But when I leave both home and work…
In the wilderness, OCD is not a disorder; it is a survival trait. It comes in handy when traveling in general, but it manifests full-blown when I went backpacking for the first time in years, back in 2002. Keeping track of every item you are carrying… where it belongs, where it IS… can make the difference between a good hike an a disaster. The circumstantial OCD I learned for two trips to wilderness of Isle Royale serves me well for traveling by scooter as well.
Every item I bring is on the packing list. Every item on the packing list has a place. While I am not inflexible – the iPhone can go either in my left front pants pocket OR in the left pocket of my riding jacket, as appropriate – I find it very helpful to stick to the plan. That way I know in an instant whether I have my wallet or not. I can put my hands on my rain gear in seconds if needed (and in one case it was). In an environment in which all of the familiar things are absent, the familiarity of the packing system provides comfort.
The ride from Petoskey to Mackinaw was a good one. M119 was as much a pleasure to ride as I remembered. And I stayed to roads closer to the lakeshore this time; last time I wasn’t sure if they were paved all they way, so I took a surer route.
