I've been out of the office for the last 10 days riding the Trans-America Trail with 3 other motorcyclists. Rick Plant and Matt Evans from Lenovo and David Rush, a long time friend of mine from Dallas, made the trek. We rode for 7 days and covered 1500 miles from Jellico Tennesse to Bartlesville Oklahoma. Bartlesville is the "cultural backwater" where I grew up. For the most part the route was non-paved. We traversed dusty dirt roads, jagged gravel, swollen creek beds, flooded roads, raised levees, old power line trails, barren farm fields, closed bridges, and twisty asphalt connecting the whole thing together. I'll give you a warning, the stream crossings are extraordinarly slippery. Two of our riders went down in the water, fortunately nobody got hurt. Our average speed was just over 30mph, certainly not your typical flight down the interstate. This was one of my favorite signs along the route. How did they know I was coming?  It was poetic finally ending up at Bartlesville Cycle Sports. We bought the bikes there from my old friend and racer Bob Derrick well over a year ago to make this ride a reality.

Matt blasting through a flooded road in Mississippi

Contemplating the strength of a closed wooden bridge

I took my ThinkPad x300 on the trip for e mail communication and an emergency lifeline via broadband. It worked flawlessly.  Dirt,  dust, vibration, and water couldn't stop it from performing as expected. This was certainly the most extreme torture test I have personally subjected any ThinkPad to. Fantastic trip, exceptional ThinkPad.

Bob welcomes us to Bartlesville

Final navigational rollchart

David Hill