It was another in a string of several days that just defied description! How could one possibly reduce to mere words the elation, the sheer joy I was experiencing right that moment? Way beyond anything I might could do, but still, I wanted to hold onto that sensation, that exaltation, and use whatever meager effort I might produce to refresh my memory later…
Riding for each of us is similar in most obvious ways, but it is so unique and personal in the ways that matter most. Another of those things that simply defy description, of course, but we all know what I’m getting at here… I’ll leave for another time any attempt to quantify that aspect of our shared passion, and for now I’ll content myself with staying on task and on topic.
I can’t know how it might be for others, but… for this particular rider, road trips have always had a serious and predictable dark side. From the very beginning, they have always included a ‘zone of anxiety’ that automatically kicked-in during any adventure. Yep, and for yours truly, it occurred sometime around the point where I ‘made the turn’. That stage of the trip when my direction was back towards home and the inevitable ‘return to normalcy’! I simply did not want to leave what I was doing to go do what was necessary to pick-up the tab for all of this!
Even though I retired more than twenty-two years ago, I still experience that same… let down… That discomfort, that gnawing sensation in my gut, when ALI’s front wheel is pointed towards… the ‘end’ of an adventure. One could be forgiven for not understanding how that can still be, when the ‘apparent’ reason for it has long ago vanished! I don’t understand either, but I do know it is still there, and I seem completely inept at reasoning it away…
Trout Dude and I were riding eastward following several wonderful weeks of riding and exploring, moving at a decent clip towards the meet-up with MitchO in Charles City, IA. I was just beginning to recognize what was going on with me… I was entering that dreaded ‘zone’ again, and I was fearful it might show-up in my behavior somehow… I did not want some innocent wisecrack or sarcastic off-handed remark to injure what for me are highly prized relationships!!! I needed to be extra cautious!
Dennis picked right up on my mood change, and in his own skillful way encouraged me to open-up and let it out… I did. We laughed a bit at what seems on the surface to be such a trivial thing, but in reality is so profound and impacting! As he so often does, he offered a simple, easy-to-see path out of my morass… “Just don’t go home!” That was all it took!!!
Two amigos ready to get back out there…
Mitch & Dennis sure play nice together…
When our purpose was met, Dennis and Mitch rode off towards their own destinies, as I stood on the balcony of that motel and waved farewell to two of the best friends I have… I was alone again, with no direction, no plan, no idea at all what I might do or where I might go… It was perfect!!! Once I’d ‘seen the light’, I’d immediately felt a rush… as though a heavy burden had been lifted and a shot of adrenaline administered at the same time!
It didn’t matter what the particulars of the next week or two might hold, it only mattered that adventure lay out there along my path someplace, and that the routine ordinariness of ‘regular life’ had been postponed indefinitely! I was free to wander and wonder, to learn and grow, to binge on the desert of life…
And so it was that several days later, our girl and her partner were cruising along back roads in northwestern Nebraska and eastern Wyoming… the so-called sandhills just south of the Black Hills. Even though we’ve ridden through there before, it was still seemingly novel and fascinating to rediscover! I’ve been completely unable to ‘get enough’ of all of this… to sate an insatiable appetite for moving on, seeing all there is… for living, as opposed to merely existing…
DDT
