"River." I love the very word. There's a murmur to it, a melody, the word "river" sounds like it is, sounds like what it does...
In days past, I'd been a riverman, a boatsman.....long boats down the Ohio, steamboats up and down the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Yellowstone, the Columbia, the Snake.... Rivers are the life force -- the veins and arteries of any continent, any nation. And the names of rivers and river towns! The Mississippi, the Missouri, the Rappahannock , the Susquehanna, the Arkansas, the Tennessee, the Colorado, the Snake, the Columbia, the Lochsa, the Clearwater... Cairo, Memphis, Knoxville, Hannibal, New Orleans...Great Falls, Missoula, Kettle Falls, Walla Walla, Umatilla, the Dalles, Bridge of the Gods, Hood River, Portland.... I love rivers and I love river towns, and I love riding my motorcycles on the river roads alongside them. Many, many good motorcycle roads follow rivers: Highway 14 (the Columbia), Highway 12 (The Clearwater, the Lochsa), Highway 30 (the Platte), Highway 200 (Clark's Fork), and on and on..... it's spring; the rivers are awakening and beginning to move, and so am I... again, it's time to go....
