Traveling alone was different on a motorcycle before cell phones. I did it on an old 1965 BMW retrofitted to hold a backpack which held clothes, enough tools to rebuild the engine in a parking lot (including the 3x10mm fine thread bolts you'd need to remove the clutchplate) and had a two man nylon tent tied on top. Now, there a cell phones, hotels, and books on tape-I'll get to that last shortly and portable computers that allow you to pretend you are connected to someone else. The truth may be that when you are traveling alone, you are not really connected to anything except the road and what you are carrying with you.
I mentioned I was reading...and understanding...Don Quixote for the first time. Any prior reading had no understanding in it. I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which is the same book without a lot of the insanity, just as The secret life of Walter Mitty is the same book (in short story form) with the insanity but without the travel.
When I traveled alone before, there were fewer scheduled stops. Don Quixote relies too much of coincidence but there is plenty of self determination in between and perhaps the lesson is that if you take advantage of self determination, then the coincidences will present themselves.
Anyway, I mentioned the books on tape and I'll get to that shortly.
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