The Trip
I have this dream trip in mind where I take two or more months to ride across the country on my Valkyrie. It would be a journey fraught with perils, but rewarded in personal insight and growth. From bike breakdowns, to weather, to the danger of obstacles and other vehicles, it would be perilous. But the reward of having done it, that is an experience that could never be taken away from me.
I don’t have many life changing or soul building experiences. I mean I have the standards: marriage, failed marriage, child, and your other everyday average experiences. I don’t mean to in any way demean these experiences, each was a bit “magical” in it’s own way, it’s just that I haven’t had one all my own, that millions of others have not also experienced. Some people take off and backpack Europe for a year, climb some unclimbable place, or brave the Amazon rain forest, just to say they did. I didn’t do one of those. But even as a teen I dreamed of owning a motorcycle and riding it cross the country.
Well, I own a motorcycle, a rather nice one, comfortable, I commuted 120 miles a day (60 mi each way) through Boston with it and I regularly put on 300-500 recreational mile days in the summer. The miles put on during a normal summer are less than the miles it would be to zigzag across country and back. So I know I can easily do it. Riding cross country would be almost the same as summer riding, with a destination, or many destinations.
The problem is that I am getting old. Now is actually the prime time to do it. I don’t have an employer with whom I have to build enough vacation time. I can work my business from the road. I am still in decent shape with decent reflexes. At 43 I am old enough to be cautious yet not too old to be overly so (overly cautious is just as dangerous as complete lack of caution on a bike). I need to begin to plan my journey. I need to make it happen. One summer, out and back.
Will I do it? Or will there always be an excuse not to, I’m buying a house this year, kids in school, one needs this, another needs that, girlfriend wants marriage, she wouldn’t be happy with me gone for two months, the excuses of life which squash dreams. The excuses that set them aside for the future and keep setting them aside until there is no more future, will they get this one? Only time will tell, but this trip is my dream.
