Wild Motorcyle Roads in Illinios and Wisconsin

One of my favorite things to do is to break the day on a Motorcycle. The changing light in the morning is mesmerizing. I departed Tennessee at 0430; I'm on my way to Wisconsin on a 1,400-mile
odyssey. I'm in search of a River Road. This one is on the Illinois River between Peoria and La Sala.

The road is always calling my name. It's like a song I can't get out of my head. It's been that way since I was a little kid of 10, riding my Honda 50 around our neighborhood. I was always looking for new trails to ride. Today, it's no different. On the second day of the trip, I start on an unknown road, Illinois Highway 29/26.

It's a fast climb out of the Illinois River Valley onto the northern Prairie. Riding on the Prairie has its advantages. You can see the weather for miles; sometimes it is unavoidable, and sometimes it isn't. Today I skirt a squall line to the west, heading into Wisconsin, and only get a few raindrops. Riding on flat terrain gives you a peaceful, relaxing feeling. Then there are the windmills that fill the corn fields. Which, to me, brings an added beauty.

Once I get into Wisconsin, the terrain turns to rolling hills of the Driftless Area. A rare northern geographical feature where no glaciers were ever present during the last ice age. I make a turn to head north on County Road J, which turns into a gift from the motorcycle gods. Some of the best roads I've ridden, I have found by accident. This one was special, about 30 miles of switchbacks and S-turns.

It's been a good ride so far today. I'm stopping for an early lunch, and it's only an hour to Mom's house for a 4-day visit. After my 4-day visit with Mom, it's time to head home, another 700-mile adventure.  

After a 500-mile ride from Wisconsin, where I rinse and repeat County Road J, I thought about riding straight through to home. But the heat was getting to me, so I decided to stop outside of Mount Vernon in southern Illinois.  It's only a short 219 miles to the house.  

The next day I decided to leave the interstate to ride some more unknown roads.  Leaving the highway behind, Illinois Route 142 opened up into a rider's paradise, characterized by long, unbroken straightaways punctuated by wide, sweeping turns.  On this pavement, the heavy rumble of a classic V-twin engine smoothed out the tarmac, making the rural highway feel like pure silk. 

The final stretch promises a familiar rhythm.  The high-energy rock discography of the band Seether provides the soundtrack for the remaining miles, keeping the heat fatigue at bay.

Ahead lies Kentucky Route 109—a twisting asphalt ribbon that this motorcycle knows by heart.  The garage in Clarksville, Tennessee, is finally calling, bringing an end to an epic 1,400-mile journey defined by open roads.

A Night at The Bluebird Cafe

This was definitely a bucket list item, and when a good friend Gregg said Let's go try to get in on standby, I jumped at the chance.  The Bluebird, which only seats 90 people, is one of the hardest tickets in Nashville; when released for sale online, they sell out in seconds.  

This iconic venue is a showcase for songwriters and upcoming artists that gives you an up-close, hard-to-find personal experience.  We get here more than an hour before the show and are 5th and 6th in line.  As they seat the ticket holders, the door manager says they usually seat at least 6 walk-ups.  We are the last 2 through the door.  

Music City, Nashville, above all else, is a songwriters' town, and last night we got to listen to 3 of the best.  Listening to their music and their journey to success was a transcendent experience. 

Marv Green,  Kent Blazy, and Leslie Satcher are seasoned professionals who are clearly good friends.  Experiences and anecdotes roll off their tongues like a fine art display in a museum.  Marv said that when he first got to Nashville in 93, no one wanted to go to Broadway; Kent then chimed in, "Yes, the only thing down there were drunks and hookers.  And look at it now; they have Drunks and Hookers. 

 

Kent Blazy - had a long tribute to Kris Kristopherson.  He said he was the most driven songwriter he ever met.  Kristofferson, an Army officer whose father was an Air Force general, taught English at West Point, became a Rhodes Scholar, and was on the fast track for an illustrious Army career.  He gave all up to be a songwriter in Nashville. His family disowned him, and he started in Nashville at Capitol Records, cleaning toilets and sweeping floors.  The rest is history.

Merv Green sang a song he wrote for Willie Nelson: "If We Knew We Were Going to Live This Long.

Leslie Satcher sang a song she wrote the day before the show - I Love a Man with 18 Wheels.

You could write a separate book on each about their many hits. 

Marv Green is known for co-writing Lonestar's 1999 single "Amazed", which reached number 1 on both the Hot Country Songs and Billboard Hot 100 charts.  This song won him a Song of the Year award from Broadcast Music, Inc.   He has had artists including George Strait, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Reba, Jewel, Eric Church, Dierks Bentley, Lonestar, Faith Hill, Brooks And Dunn, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood, Bon Jovi, Jason Aldean, Chris Young, Dustin Lynch, Jo Dee Messina, Lee Ann Womack, Sara Evans, Martina McBride, Jessica Andrews, Kelly Pickler, Brad Paisley, Rodney Atkins, Billy Currington, Danny Gokey and Joe Diffie have record his songs.

Leslie Satcher is known as a country singer and songwriter; her talents cross all genres.  She has written or co-written songs that have been recorded by everyone from Willie Nelson to Ariana Grande; Vince Gill to Sheila E.; George Strait to Sheryl Crow; Martina McBride to Keb'Mo; Blake Shelton to Bonnie Raitt and many, many more   She has received multiple BMI "Million-Air" awards recognizing a song's one millionth airplay, and her incomparable vocals contribute to an astounding number of Grammy, CMA & ACM award-winning projects.

Kent Blazy met with a then-unknown Garth Brooks, who gave him the idea for a song entitled "If Tomorrow Never Comes." He and Brooks co-wrote the song, which went on to become Brooks' first number one hit.  He has gone on to write seven #1 hits among many others with Brooks.  Many of his songs continue to be recorded by artists such as Kenny Chesney, Diamond Rio, Terri Clark, Clay Walker, Patty Loveless, Julie Roberts, Andy Griggs, and Blaine Larsen"

The Wright Brothers: Conquering Flight in Dayton

DAYTON, Ohio — As the Wandering Soldier, my travels often take me to battlefields and monuments, but today my boots are on the ground at the true birthplace of aviation.  Walking through Dayton, I am tracking a different kind of military operation: a relentless battle against gravity fought by two self-taught brothers.  I'm amazed by the fact that if the Wright Brothers had stopped, given up after Kitty Hawk, they wouldn't even be a footnote in history.  It took them another 3 years to truly master controlled flight. 

The Wright brothers' journey to achieving controlled flight wasn't funded by government grants.  It was fueled entirely by their own blue-collar grit and commercial ventures.  Long before they conquered the skies, Orville and Wilbur were businessmen.  They started out running a family print shop, but as the cycling craze swept the nation, they transitioned into the bicycle industry.  Over the years, their enterprise grew until they eventually operated six different bike shops across the city.

It was this booming bike business that provided the critical financial runway allowing them to pursue their costly dream of flight.  Here is how that mechanical foundation—and the hurdles they overcame—unfolded across the historic sites I visited today.

My first stop was the Wright Cycle Company complex.  Walking through this space, the engineering connection between a bicycle and an airplane becomes immediately clear.  The brothers didn't just use bike profits to fund their experiments; they actively incorporated bicycle parts into their early airplanes, using chain drives, sprockets, and spoke wires for tension.

The hurdle here was a fundamental lack of accurate data.  Before 1901, the brothers relied on aerodynamic lift tables calculated by earlier pioneers.  In the back of their shop, they realized these formulas were deeply flawed.  To fix it, they used their mechanical skills to build a makeshift wind tunnel out of a starch box and scraps.  By testing miniature wing shapes, they discarded existing scientific understanding
and manually rederived the laws of aerodynamics.

Historical note: The physical history of their business is split today.  While Dayton preserves this historic complex, Henry Ford actually purchased one of their original bike shop buildings during the Great Depression.  He moved it to his Greenfield Village museum in Michigan in 1936 to preserve it for the nation.

Next, I climbed the hill to the massive Wright Brothers Memorial, looking out over the Miami Valley.  Standing here, I reflected on the massive conceptual hurdle the brothers had to overcome regarding pilot control.

At the time, other inventors were trying to build inherently stable flying machines that would fly in straight lines like a boat.  The Wrights, drawing directly from their experience riding and building bicycles, knew that a flying machine had to be inherently unstable.  It required a pilot to constantly balance and correct its path.

Observing how turkey vultures twisted their wings to maintain balance in gusty winds gave them a breakthrough.  They developed "wing-warping"—twisting the wingtips to control roll.  By combining this with a front elevator for pitch control and a rear rudder for yaw control, they engineered the world's first successful three-axis control system.

My final stop was the historic marshy pasture of Huffman Prairie Flying Field, tucked inside modern-day Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  While their famous 1903 flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, proved they could get off the ground, it was right here at Huffman Prairie, between 1904 and 1905, that they truly mastered controlled flight.

The hurdles at Huffman Prairie were brutal:

• The Lack of Wind: Unlike the steady, powerful ocean winds of Kitty Hawk, Ohio's air was dead and fickle.  Their early Flyer II struggled to lift off at all.
• The Catapult Solution: To defeat the dead air, they built a heavy derrick-and-weight catapult system to sling their aircraft into the sky.
• The Terrifying Tail-Spins: In 1904, tight turns often caused aircraft to lose control and crash.  They solved this final hurdle by making the rear rudder movable and linking it to the wing-warping system, creating the truly practical Flyer III.

Standing on the airfield as the wind swept across the prairie, a heavy piece of history came to mind.  Wilbur Wright, the brilliant co-architect of human flight, died tragically of typhoid fever in 1912 at just 45 years old.  Because of his premature death, he never lived to see the massive global and commercial success of the flying machine he sacrificed his life to build.  Walking back to my Jeep, I couldn't help but feel a wave of gratitude that modern medicine has given us a vaccination for typhoid—a shield those brilliant brothers never had.

For a wandering soldier, tracing this battlefield of human ingenuity reminds me that the toughest victories aren't always won with weapons, but with blueprints, bicycles, and an unyielding refusal to stay grounded.