Tag Archives: Outside

Motorcycle Across the USA

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I made it home! In one piece, more or less. The Impeller didn’t fare as well. Speedometer is blown. Windshield split in half. Turn signal cracked. Brakes are squeaking. Tank paint is peeling. The stator is shot. The battery won’t recharge. My leather jacket is plastered with bug guts. My pants are full of battery acid holes. But I made it! What a ride. This is a big, beautiful country, and I just spent a month floating across it. A dream fulfilled. I could have kept going for a long, long time…

The Entire Trip. Over 5ooo miles, according to Google.

My sister asked me – why would I want to ride a motorcycle around the country? Because it feels like freedom? Yes. Because it feels like freedom. The open road, and speed, and exposure, and wondrous landscapes, and no place I have to be. Exploring. Moving fast. Outside. This is the flavor of freedom. Life on a motorcycle is immediate and vital. Hurling across the countryside, hovering a few feet off the ground… the experience is charged and fully sensual. You are there. Each shift in climate or geography brings a new array of sensations. Colors come alive. The nose is awake, taking in every smell. The subtlest change in temperature registers on the skin- the shadow of a cloud, a drop in altitude, an irrigated field. The wind roars in your ears as it pushes and pulls and slams against you. Gravity connects your body to the machine. Turning is falling. There is no opportunity for abstraction. You are strapped to the moment.  Continue reading →

And They’re Off…

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A 600 mile test run through the Sawtooth Mountains, along the Salmon River, barren high winds high desert, and across the Craters of the Moon. One of the most beautiful stretches of highway in the USA. The old Silver Wing is purring like a kitten. The long haul begins tomorrow.

This is how it was supposed to happen: Randy finds me a workable motorcycle. I fly into Boise, one way ticket. We spend a couple days tuning up the bikes, then hop in Randy’s Eurovan and head to the mountains for a week of backpacking above the treeline. Return to Boise. Fire up the bikes. Head for the ocean.

This is how it happened: Randy found me a motorcycle. After many days of perusing Craig’s List Boise, and after Rand has gone out to test a few options, we settle on a 1981 Honda GL500 Silver Wing with “no issues”. Listed at $800. Randy talks the guy down to $675. It sounds like it’s just what I need: not pretty, but an affordable reliable mid-weight touring bike that, with a little love and luck, should get me around the Southwest and back to Mpls comfortably.

I wire Randy the money. He overnights the title. I take a Basic Rider Course at Century College, which allows me to get my Minnesota motorcycle license in spite of the state shutdown. Everything is coming together nicely.  Continue reading →

Winter Wonderland

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ElyHouse
 
 

Ely, Minnesota - I woke up this morning, pried myself out from under a pile of quilts and blankets, looked out the window of my newly adopted home in the frigid Northland … and then started jumping around like a six-year old. SNOW! Four fresh and fluffy inches- sun bouncing across the crystal white carpet. Gorgeous. A cosmic welcome mat. This is a good sign. This will be my home for the next couple of months, as I dig into my books and thoughts and maybe come up with a plan for what’s next. I’ve already started digging. Some of the fruit of this labor will find its way onto these pages over the course of the next weeks (although I don’t have internet at the house).

ElyRoom
 
 

This is one of the gifts. This is how it works. I had been feeling the need for a place to get away and concentrate on reading and writing, to process all that I have gathered in my travels and searches, and through this process, hopefully, to conjure up some sense of where my life can best be applied. (See Blessed Unrest) But I was stumped as to where I could do this. I was looking for solitude, for very few distractions. Preferably in or near the woods. I was also hankering for winter, as I haven’t had a decent one in several years. And then, out of the blue, my cousin calls me and asks me if I know anyone who wants watch over his friend’s home in Ely for a few months. Ding!

And now, here I am. “Let it Snow” is playing on the speakers at this very moment as I sit near the fire at the Front Porch coffee shop in Ely. The forecast does indeed call for more snow, possibly six more inches tonight. I just picked up a map of the local ski trails…