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going.”
    â€œYeah. I know. I just thought I’d give it one last try.”
    â€œI’m sorry. That’s just the way I am.”
    â€œBut did we really have to make all our hotel and motel reservations in advance?” I asked. “Couldn’t we maybe just wing it, trusting to chance that we’ll find a cozy place for the night when night comes on?”
    â€œI used to run a place like the ones we’d be likely to find if we trusted to chance,” she reminded me. “That’s why I made reservations at places where I think we can remain dry on rainy nights.”
    We took our places in the car. Albertine switched it on, put it into gear, pulled out of the spot in front of our building where we’d parked it for packing, and headed for the corner.
    â€œWell,” I said hopefully, “there’s always the chance that we’ll get lost.”

Chapter 3
    West Bayborough
    It is often necessary while flying to determine where one is, or was, or will be, at a given time.
    Francis Pope and Arthur S. Otis, Elements of Aeronautics
    I HAD BEEN ON THE ROAD for a couple of hours, enjoying myself quite a bit despite the fact that I couldn’t get Spirit off the ground, when I began talking to my mount. At first I was just urging her to get up and go, but then, little by little, I began conversing with her as I would have with a traveling companion.
    â€œDo you think that means something?” I asked her as we came to a stop at a red light. “The way talking to yourself means money in the bank?”
    â€œDoesn’t that mean company’s coming?” she asked.
    â€œMoney in the bank, company’s coming, something like that.”
    â€œI think it’s just an inevitable consequence of traveling solo,” she said thoughtfully. “Sooner or later, a solo traveler will talk to himself—or to his beautiful aerocycle if he’s fortunate enough to have one. That’s just the way it is.”
    â€œWhat?” asked the driver of the car beside me.
    â€œOh—ah—nothing,” I said. “I was just talking to my—ah—myself.”
    â€œMeans you’re nuts,” he claimed cheerily. “You want to try to keep that under control.”
    â€œYes, sir,” I said.
    Embarrassed, I chugged along for a while without saying a word to anyone.
    â€œSo!” she said after a couple of blocks. “I embarrass you!”
    â€œOh, no. No. Of course not.”
    â€œThen why wouldn’t you admit to that fool that you were talking to me?”
    â€œI—”
    â€œThat was a person of absolutely no consequence to you, someone you are not likely ever to see again, and yet you wouldn’t acknowledge me.”
    â€œPlease, I—”
    â€œDon’t talk to me.”
    â€œOkay.”
    We rode on in silence until the silence grew awkward, whereupon I broke it by remarking, as if there were no ill feeling between us, “So this is traveling without a map, free as the wind!”
    â€œI like it!” said Spirit, apparently as eager as I to put the past behind us.
    â€œIt’s easier than I thought it would be,” I said.
    â€œI agree!”
    For a moment I thought of using that remark as an opening to point out that she wasn’t putting as much effort into transporting me as I had expected her to, but I think that—tyro traveler though I was—I realized that it’s not wise to antagonize one’s traveling companion or one’s conveyance or both so early in the trip.
    â€œNow that I think about it, I realize that I had begun to worry that it was going to be boring,” I said instead, “just one straight road to New Mexico without any diversions.”
    â€œIt was studying all those maps that did that.”
    â€œBut now I’m finding that although I have a general direction in mind as a goal—”
    â€œA kind of Emersonian tendency.”
    â€œUm,