Control your mind, control your mind.......

To ride a motorcycle on the great American prairie at the height of summer, one must control the mind. The gently undulating, unending landscape, the constant wind -- which has been blowing for millions of years -- the waving grasses, and the unmatched blue vault of sky plays many tricks on your mental state. Chief among these is simply falling asleep, which is death itself... if the fall off the bike at 70 plus mph doesn't kill you, the multi-hour wait for any sort of medical care will. You will surely bleed out or go into irreversible shock, and...will simply die. As beautiful as the prairie is, one must not be lulled to sleep upon it.. One weapon I use against sleep is to not eat until safely in camp. Nothing. Food in the stomach shunts blood to the stomach, and away from the brain. Many bikers have gone to their just rewards after a fulfilling meal of a double bacon cheeseburger with fries...many. Don't eat! You won't die of hunger, but you might from a cheeseburger! Another weapon is a constant fluid intake. I always wear a camelback filled with water and ice, and I'm constantly toking on it. The dry prairie air, at 70 mph, will shrivel you like a prune, and in less time than you can believe.....but stay away from sugary drinks! The sugar crash will nod you off, in blissful sleep, which is ...death. Iced tea at hourly breaks will help greatly.

Changes....

Today my wife and I set out on a leisurely Sunday ride, on our 2005 Goldwing...... ten miles out of town, on a country lane, at about 55-60 mph, we had a catastrophic loss of air pressure in our rear Dunlop Elite III with about 8500 miles on it..... The tire had plenty of tread, and while beginning to square, looked like it had some miles to go, although I was planning to replace it within a week or so..... We experienced a wild, yawing, bucking ride until I got it safely to the shoulder, and we both thought we were going down hard..... Damn. The Summer before last we rode on a Pirelli Centaur car tire, from Washington State to North Carolina and back mostly on Highway 50 , two up, pulling a trailer.... we rode the Dragon two or three times, rode over the Lassen Volcano National Monument, Monarch Pass, and Togatee Pass to Jackson's Hole coming home.... no problems, none, for 10, 899 miles and the tire was used when it was given to us along with a spare rear wheel. No problems, none. Tomorrow, I'm going to Walmart with our spare wheel and have another Pirelli run-flat put on. As long as I'm a Goldwinger, I'll be a Darkside Goldwinger, without hesitation or apology. Nothing but a C/T run-flat on the back from now on....nothing. I don't care what anybody says, we won't have a "death ride stop" like that again. Never.

Also,  we may be done as a long-distance motorcycling couple.... While we've only had one accident in well over a quarter million miles (a deer strike in Michigan nearly a decade ago), my wife suffered the most pain and disabling injury then. I was also seriously injured, but not as much as she was. Yesterday, as I fought the handlebars to keep us up during a rapid rear tire deflation, all I could "see" in my mind was, "don't hurt her again, don't hurt her again." My wife is everything to me; she's given up a lot just to be with me; and I could not bear psychologically or emotionally the thought of causing her serious injury again, or perhaps, even her death. I simply cannot bear the thought. I'm too old and too battle scarred to worry much about my own death anymore, and for me alone I'd probably just grin and keep on twisting the damn throttle -- and I shall. Here's what we're gonna do: back after our accident, when she wasn't sure about riding again, we bought her a Miata MX5 sports car. The half-formed plan was for me to ride the Wing, and her to drive the Miata.... And now that half-formed plan is evolving into reality. I put a trailer hitch on the little car right after we bought it, and it pulls the motorcycle camping trailer quite nicely. And she loves to drive that car. So we will still make long trips, but with two vehicles not one -- she driving her beloved Miata, and me on the Wing. When we reach our destination, we might do small day trips on the bike together, or in the car depending upon the situation. It will be more gas burned of course, but we apologize to no one on that issue... for twenty six years we traveled by bike, and slept in a backpack tent. We've earned the extra gas.... I say a lot that love is simply "caring more about another's welfare than your own." And I love my wife. The Good Lord may forgive me for taking chances with my own life, but not hers.... she means too much to too many people.

Some years ago, Red and I came from the Eastern Mountains on our sweet running old Goldwing. We'd crossed the prairies, and then the Rockies via Lolo Pass, and were now in the wheat fields and scab lands of Eastern Washington, just a couple hours from home. It was hot, so we stopped at Kahlotus, Washington, for a cold drink. Kahlotus is one of those sad little towns that have been decimated by agri-business and the increasing efficiency of farm machinery, and they sit abandoned on the secondary roads of wheat country, forgotten like discarded beer cans. Most of them have a filling station, though, with a convenience store, and we bought a couple of cokes and sat at a picnic table in the shade.


While we sat there, I noticed a woman in obvious distress, gesturing frantically at a teenage boy with a 12 Volt inflating device in his hands. Two willowy, athletic looking, teenage girls stood by, their arms crossed over their chests in the classic "Bored Teen" stance. I sat my soft drink down and walked over to their vehicle. "Problem?" I asked. The woman backed away from me (motorcycle clothing, you see....) and wailed: "We have a flat tire and I can't find anybody in this stupid town to fix it! I've got to get these girls to a soccer clinic at WSU! Do you know how to work that thing he has....."


I stared at her for a moment, and then asked. "Well, let me see....don't you have a spare?"


"A spare what," she cried.


"A spare tire...it's usually in the trunk somewhere."


"Well," she muttered. "Even if I do, I don't know what to do with it."


I sighed. "Tell you what...if you and your young ladies here will unload your trunk, I'll try and find your spare...if you have one, my wife and I will change it for you, but only if you watch and learn how to do it."


Within a couple of minutes, they had unloaded the cavernous trunk of their sedan, and I had found the spare, the lug wrench, and the jack.
My wife walked over with our fast warming soft drinks.....

"First thing," I said. "See those nuts? They hold your wheel on to your wheel hub...they've been put on with power, though, and you can't loosen them by hand...here's the trick." I put the lug wrench on at a parallel angle, and then stood on it, with my hands on the fender for balance, and bounced up and down until the lug broke free, We did all the rest, jacked up the car, spun the nuts the rest of the way off, pulled off the flat tire, installed the emergency wheel, installed the nuts finger tight, dropped the jack, and tightened the lug nuts, standing again on the wrench. "There you go, ladies, as you can see, it ain't rocket science!" The young girls were grinning, and the lady was almost delirious with relief. She tried to hand me three twenty dollar bills. "No, I'm not gonna take any money. Just speak highly of school counselors in the future if you can, because I know most teachers despise us! Just remember that a school counselor changed your wheel today (she had told me she was an elementary school teacher). By the way, don't drive over 50 mph on that wheel ... and once you get to Pullman? Drop the girls off at the clinic and then go to a tire repair shop and get your original wheel fixed....okay?" They thanked us again, piled into the car and drove carefully off.....


We finished our drinks, crawled on to our old bike, and headed in the opposite direction, toward home.... On the bike that we had learned to rebuild the front forks of, installing seals and sliders and progressive springs, and a fork brace made of solid aluminum...on the bike from which we had yanked out the carburetors, and rebuilt them, with Red's slender and supple fingers doing most of the work... on the bike that we tuned with new plugs and new exhausts...on the bike that we changed timing belts on twice... on the bike where we had laminated new ABS plastic on our cracking rear trunk lid, and then reinforced the top with sheet aluminum, which I polished with a grinding disc... on the bike that we had installed an after market spin on oil filter adapter, after we had stripped the filter basket bolt by cross-threading it .....on the bike the tires of which we'd learned to take off and spoon on ourselves.... on the bike that had carried us across the country several times, up to Alaska, and back to Nova Scotia.... for 100,000 miles that bike had carried us...but we always had a grease stained service manual in our sidebags, and as many tools as we could carry in the other....the bike that taught us how to care for it, as well as for ourselves......


I stopped at a side road for a drink of water from the plastic container we carried between us. "What are you thinking," my lovely wife asked. "Oh," I replied. "I'm thinking of a woman who would take a two hundred mile trip through the scab lands of Eastern Washington on a hundred plus degree day....in a car that she didn't know how to change a tire on.... man....that woman is brave, huh?"



Epilogue: Several months later, back on the job, I came into my office after a longish lunch break ride, and my secretary handed me an envelope. "What's this," I asked. "Who's it from?" "Don't know," she replied. "Some lady came in and asked if we had a counselor that rode a motorcycle....I told her 'yes, but you were out on it'" "She then asked if you had a red-headed wife, and I said 'yes,' and then she handed me that and said it was for you.....Oh, and she told me to tell you that she absolutely loves school counselors!' I tore the envelope open... there was no note, just a healthy -- very healthy -- gift certificate to a very pricey local restaurant. Sometimes, good deeds come back.....

Two wheels and an engine have freed me from the earth, and have given me the earth at the same time. With hardly any effort at all, I can cross mountain ranges and prairies and a continent that took men of a century and a half ago weeks and months and years. This simple, uncomplicated, mechanical device is often overlooked for the miracle it is..... It isn't transportation, it's transformation. To ride across this nation in a box, or, even worse, to fly over it in another shinier box, isn't the same thing, not by half. To ride in the open air alongside the Oregon Trail ruts, the explorer rivers leading west, and the great seashores is perhaps the most vibrant way to link the past to the present, and perhaps even to the future .... at least I've found it so. I'll ride until I die. Free range is what the motorcycle gives us, free range..... And for some of us, the blessed, or perhaps the cursed, free range is as necessary as oxygen.

The Miracle Of A Tent.....

“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of your habitations: spare not, lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes.” Isaiah 54:2

Tents. We take them for granted. There are generally four issues of human survival: air, food, water, shelter. The tent was one of the first shelters ever purposely devised by mankind.....no one knows just exactly when the tent was invented, but an ancient shelter unearthed in Russia was carbon dated to 40,000 years ago..... and that was some time ago, my friends, some long time ago. Roman Legionnaires and Mongolian Cavalry and Lakota Buffalo Hunters all sheltered under tents; and it is the shelter of choice and convenience for nomadic peoples up until modern times. Armies since before the Roman empire have carried tents. Tents are established human tools.

And what better shelter for a motorcycle traveler could be imagined? Cheap, portable, durable, the tent can be strapped to almost any motorcycle ever made..... All over the globe, people traveling on motorcycles usually have a tent strapped on behind. When my wife and I were much younger, and even more impoverished than we are now, we decided to see the world anyway we could....and what made it possible for us was the relatively inexpensive motorcycle, and the even more inexpensive tent. With a motorcycle, tent, and sleeping bags, no part of the world was denied us.... You can generally spend 4-5 nights camping for the expense of one night in a motel or hotel. With a tent like the Eureka Timberline 4 (still under $200), a couple of medium quality sleeping bags with pads, nearly all the world is yours, and because of modern materials you will be warm, dry, and comfortable. We've spent certainly hundreds, perhaps thousands, of nights in tents, and we were truly miserable only once or twice -- generally because of high heat and humidity.

We are a bit older now, and have stepped up to a motorcycle tent trailer, and it's a true luxury. But if that tent trailer evaporated tomorrow, I'd go out into my garage and look over my tent collection -- four, five, or so -- choose one, strap it on, wait for my irrepressible partner to climb on, and motorcycle off without fear or regrets. We've traveled far with our wonderful tents, and we could go a bit further with one, a bit further.... If a tent was good enough for Julius Caesar, Ghengiz Khan, or Crazy Horse, it's good enough for us!

The Beemer guy.......

He was clad all in leather and rode a BMW flat twin airhead. He sported a magnificent white, gunfighter mustache, waxed and twirled at the ends, and appeared to be in his mid-seventies. He told me that he had walked out of a corporate boardroom meeting twenty years before (this was in 1992), crossed a street and bought his BMW motorcycle new right off the showroom floor, and had been touring the world ever since. When I expressed my admiration, he gestured toward our old Goldwing with the second hand sidecar, and at our frolicking six year old, and at my lovely redheaded wife. "You're on the right track yourself, son," he said. As we stood there, an Alaskan Highway Tour bus pulled in to the gas stop, and disgorged a score of customers, all of whom immediately shuffled bent-headed into the attached convenience store. He sighed, and said, "Have you ever seen such a collection of half-dead people in one spot before? Beware the tour bus fate at all costs!" After a few minutes more, he mounted his bike and pulled out on the highway, heading north, smoothly climbing his gears.....

Love of country.....

I love my country... sea to sea, border to border, prairie to mountain to prairie. Over the years, as we've ridden our motorcycle across its vast vistas under an unlimited sky, as we've slept in tents in a thousand different fields under a billion stars, the spirit of those who came before us wafted unto our souls and left us changed forever. Native Americans, colonists, settlers, warriors, farmers, poets, cowboys, lumbermen, railroaders, sailors, miners, gamblers, outlaws, thieves, prostitutes, school teachers, preachers, Mormons, Mennonites, Amish, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics.....dreamers...all dreamers. We've rumbled alongside their wagon ruts, their abandoned homesteads, their ancient fields, their shining courthouses, their churches with soaring steeples..... and somehow we heard all their songs above the roar of our engine. Their music is now forever in us, and I love my country... sea to sea, border to border, prairie to mountain to prairie.

Everywhere......

Everywhere..... mountains, prairies, deserts..... in sun, rain, and even snow.... in the cold, in the heat..... well-fed, hungry and thirsty.... she's gone everywhere with me..... everywhere.....

Without a whimper, without a complaint, without a single unkind word.... always with her flashing smile..... waiting out thunderstorms under freeway overheads and service station sheds, running from the hail, leaning out over the sidecar to feed or speak to our little son..... almost hitting bears more times than you would believe, and hitting one deer once and enough -- and sharing the same hospital room..... she's been up to Alaska twice, Nova Scotia twice, Hawaii, the European Alps three times..... well over 350,000 miles now... She's my veteran world traveler companion, and we didn't go first class.... motorcycle and tent....for twenty-five years.... we've spent hundreds and hundreds of nights in wind-rattled tents....precious nights.....everywhere.....she went everywhere with me. And we're going again. She's made my life... I look at her and marvel, and silently thank God...... and wonder how I ever deserved this blessing.

Agent of Excitement

In developed nations, where every human survival need is met, the greatest danger to human beings is boredom, or the feeling that life is agonizingly predictable and humdrum and meaningless -- and most people will go to great lengths in putting excitement back into their cubicle-bound lives. As an "Agent of Excitement," the motorcycle is unsurpassed -- relatively cheap and available to nearly everyone, motorcycles are an instant cure to the Humdrum Blues. Almost every population center in the developed world is surrounded by a rabbit's warren of paved and unpaved roads. If you have a motorcycle and an hour for lunch, you can report back to your cubicle with your heart trip-hammering, every nerve reborn and alive, looking eagerly ahead to the ride home.... if you have a motorcycle and a week, you can cross a continent, with all of the suspense and drama and uncertainty of such an endeavor....and if you have a motorcycle and more days than a week, well........

That is why motorcycle companies very seldom if ever put up advertising that mentions the utility or the inherent economy of motorcycles -- not in the developed world, anyway. Marketers of motorcycles sell the machines by talking about its ability to put romance and adventure in your life... which a motorcycle can do better than almost anything else, and which most people today need more than almost anything else. The popular iconic and universally recognized sticker, "Live To Ride, Ride To Live," strikes a chord in just about everyone suffocating and suffering in a cubicle today....

In the very early twentieth century, the vast majority of Americans lived and worked on family farms. And this was no easy life -- it was an existence marked by extremely hard work and limited geography. Most Americans lived and died in a few square miles, and many never left their own county or township. But the early Americans had also been travelers -- the Oregon and Sante Fe Trails, the sea circuit around Cape Horn, the cattle drover trails, the gold rushes, the voyage to America itself -- testified to the spirit of adventure that lurked just under the surface for most of them, and the confined life of a farmer must of rankled.....

But the development of the early twentieth century motorcycle offered almost instant salvation from the "prison" of farm work. For just a few dollars, the young farm worker could obtain the means of temporary escape.... Indian and Harley offered nearly everyone the chance of freedom, at least for a Sunday afternoon. Given the cost of feed and pasture, early motorcycles and gasoline were cheaper than horses, and much more capable of expanding a farmer's horizons. Almost every farm town across the country had a motorbike club, and pictures of them hang on the walls of many old restaurants. There was no utility to the motorcycle: you couldn't haul hay on it, you couldn't herd sheep with it (although some tried), you couldn't harvest vegetables with it.... but what you could do was change your horizons, what you could do was to "go and see," what you could do was to regain your freedom and sense of adventure. And it's interesting to me that, one hundred years or so later, motorcycles are still being used for the very same purpose.

I believe travel without effort is meaningless. Travel should not be free. Travel should cost you something, not in money but in effort and commitment and courage -- all of which is paid for from the currency of your heart..... Only when you pay dues such as these do you get the traveler's true reward -- the reward of a better understanding, a better understanding of the world and your place in it.

Motorcycling is a uniquely convenient way of adding joyous effort to travel.  It is usually so joyous, that the means become more important than the ends.   In other words,  going there is just as important as getting there.   Riders often laugh about hopping on their bike for a quick ride to the store for a loaf of bread, a quick ride that lasts half the day!  You see, it's impossible not to travel when you have access to a motorcycle and the skills to ride it.  Impossible.

Some days I'd like to take a very light motorcycle, perhaps even a scooter or a motor bike, tie on a very light sleeping bag and climber's tent.....and then just go out and see how far around the world I could get! But then... then.... I take another look at my lovely wife, and say to myself: "What's the matter, fool? Are you nuts? Already you are more fortunate than 99% of the world's population! Just lay back chilly and enjoy, you old fool, ....lay back and enjoy!"

In the western world, boredom is the greatest threat to an old man's happiness, and usually it's self-inflicted.....

But not always, sometimes it's spawned by advancing age. At seventy years plus and still suffering from the non-healed wounds he received during the Civil War, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the Hero of Little Roundtop, tried to get back into the Army for the Spanish American War, and was heartily pissed off when refused.... Why? Maybe bored, or maybe haunted by the approach of his mortality.... The more intense your life, the harder it is to see it ebbing away....

Most men can live in one place, but some cannot..... I'm one who cannot, but I do..... because I love one who can. But she loves to fly away with me, over the nap of the earth, on our Great White Wing. We go out for me, and we come back for her. It's called compromise; it' called a true Glasserian Conflict (see below); it's called love.

Speed is my narcotic, my balm, my warm scented oil...... with the throttle pegged, and the front wheel spinning, flying, carrying me faster and further than I am designed to go, I escape, for a moment, the consciousness of my weakness and fragility, my vulnerability, my temporariness...... For a shining, speeding moment, I forget my death. I forget my mortality. I forget my insignificance. By confronting death with my absurd helmet, my gloves, my throttle -- I vanquish it. But only for a shining, speeding moment.... Only for a shining, speeding moment.... And that's what our lives amount to, really, in the Grand Scheme...... a shining, speeding moment.


(Glasserian True Conflict: loving, valuing, wanting two things at once that conflict, in this case.... freedom and Red)

How to see the world with nothing....

Some folks might strongly disagree, but... I'm gonna say it anyway.  The best motorcycling on earth is in the European Alps.   Riding there is simply unbelievable.  The roads, the scenery, the people, and just  the whole bike-friendly atmosphere is unsurpassed, anywhere, on any continent....  and it's cheaper and more available to the American motorcyclist than you might think....  here's an example of what we did in 2012.



First, forget the organized tour and the guides.... you don't need it, or them.

What you need is this guide book, John Hermann, Motorcycle Journeys in the Alps and Corsica (get it at Amazon.Com) and yeah, it's expensive so buy it used. Keep it and cherish it; it's the ticket to the best riding of your life.

Second, take camping gear. The campgrounds in Europe are unbelievably luxurious and well-cared for....there is simply no justification for spending $200-$300 a night for even a three star hotel when you can stay nearly two weeks in a campground for the same amount. The nature of Alpine riding is such that it lends itself to a "basecamp" approach -- set yourself up in a comfortable campground, and make day tours from it. Keep it simple: a $150 tent (with a fly) and a $100 sleeping bag (45* rated), a sleeping pad, and maybe a backpack stove, and you're good to go! Europeans themselves stay in campgrounds, and they love Americans that do, too..... trust us!

Take your own riding gear and jacket and helmet. Put it in a big rucksack, and your camping gear will probably fit in another. Go very easy on clothes: we took mesh riding gear, a fleece, one pair of convertible pants, two pairs of synthetic underwear that we could wash out, and Frogg Togg raingear. And that's it......

Okay, here we go. Buy a roundtrip ticket to Munich (Munchen!). We got ours in high season for about $1800 apiece..... stay the night in Munich to get de-lagged (3 Star Hotel, $165). The next morning, go to the old Munich Train station and buy a ticket to Balzano, Italy via Innsbruck and Brenner Pass. Go second class; we were always able to "upgrade" our seats on the train once aboard.... we paid $125 for our tickets. Take the small digital camera out.... the train ride is spectacular!

In Balzano, if you get there late, cross the street and stay in the Balzano Youth Hostel, http://bozen.jugendherberge.it/cs.asp?st=1&sp=en, for about $20 a night, and that includes breakfast. There are four bunks to a room, and you might have to share the place with some laughing young women who don't speak your language (and the downside of that is.....?).

The next morning, take the Drusso street bus to this campground, and set your tent up.....http://www.moosbauer.com/en/t/prices.html.... this is a lovely place, and Red and I spent about $125 for a week for clean, luxurious restrooms, a well-stocked store, a pool, a restaurant, friendly staff, and good, good company with the other guests....a truly remarkable campground.

In the morning, take the Drusso bus to this place, http://www.rent-a-bike.it/47/english.html, and rent yourself a bike..... do not go too big! You don't need a Roadking or a Goldwing for the roads you're gonna be on, stay at 750ccs or smaller, even two-up, and a super-scoot is just fine.... then ride back to the campground, get your copy of Hermann's book, and go on and ride the great Dolomite roads! This will keep you busy for days and days, and will be one of the best times of your life!


We are often asked, "why don't you use organized tour companies?" Please note I have nothing against organized touring. There is however a really, really good reason, I believe, for going it alone and cobbling up your own experience: the constant exposure to Europeans.

On our trips to Europe, the train rides and campgrounds almost forced us to "rub against" Europeans in a positive way..... While I've never experienced one, a canned tour would seem to me to "encapsulate" you within the group, to limit your exposure to local people and customs -- and I realize I may be very wrong about that.

Some of our best experiences came from off the bike: the lovely Austrian girl named Kristine we met on the Munich/Balzano train, who shared her first class compartment with us and educated us on the landscapes of Brenner Pass, and who suggested we stay our first night in the Balzano Youth Hostel..... the wonderfully eccentric Brit couple in the campground in Interlaken, Switzerland, who gave us free tickets to the Niederhorn Funicular Railway (about $150 worth!)..... the laughing, wonderfully funny three young motorcycle mechanics from Amsterdam, who spoke perfect, entertaining English to us in a Balzano campground, while drinking amazing quantities of beer in the gaz lantern light.... the soft-spoken, long-haired young German student who suggested that we take the Chunnel train from Munich to London, and who ran with us carrying one of our heavy packs as we desperately tried to catch the last departure (which we did successfully by the way.....). Wherever we went, whatever we tried to do, ordinary Europeans seemed to come from everywhere to help us, to enrich our experience over there, to make sure we were "all right" and doing what we wanted to do -- and after the initial "culture shock," we always felt completely comfortable, completely at ease. This kind of travel is addictive, and immediately whets your desire for more.

Like all U.S citizens, I see things from an isolated perspective. We seem to evaluate everything against American standards, which is not accurate and not fair. But it's not completely our fault; there have always been two big oceans between us and the rest of the world, and it's hard to overcome those limiting factors and remain objective that way. But our "ground-level" travels to the old countries have opened our eyes; have gently brought us around to the idea that we have more commonalities than differences with the other peoples of the world, and that we should do our best to illuminate that fact whenever we can. After all, a motorcyclist is a motorcyclist, no matter what language her or she speaks, and no matter what roads they're on.....and the same rain falls on tents all over the world! And please, please, by whatever means you choose -- budget touring, canned touring, whatever -- get out there soon! And see for yourself what old Louis Armstrong used to sing about..... "What a wonderful world!"

(The Dolomites: northern Italy)

(On the descent of Stelvio Pass)

(Dolomites...)

(My wife in front of our tent, at the Camping Moosbaur campground, Balzano, Italy......)

Sitting on the top of Stelvio Pass.....and I'm holding the t-shirt!

(South Tyrolean scene on the way to Stelvio....)

72, and holding.......

It was my seventy-second birthday yesterday. My lovely wife gave me a new bicycle saddle, a new bicycling jersey, and a new bicycling helmet for my birthday presents, and then went with me on a leisurely Goldwing ride up to Lake Cle Elum and Salmon la Sac in central Washington State for my birthday dinner..... We stopped at the Past Time restaurant/lounge/tavern on the way home for two delicious rib eye steaks..... a rustic, 100 year old building, good service, friendly people, good food, all for $23 total, including an alcohol-free beer! Can't beat that, no matter where you are! Sometimes, half-charred, fatty meat is the only thing that will do; I felt like Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapas after a successful buffalo hunt....

And have I told you lately that the Honda Goldwing GL1800 is the best motorcycle ever devised? That it's the greatest motorcycle ever built? Well, consider yourself told... any ride, from 100 to a 1000 miles, is fast and smooth and effortless..... and with it's streamed lines, and a three dollar can of Pledge furniture polish, I can clean and polish the thing from front to back in under 10 minutes.......

Harleys are nice, and I love them, but...... When I was a boy, Harley had nothing for me, nothing I could afford, but Honda had a 50cc Super Cub -- which I could afford, and did; when I came home from Vietnam, Harley had nothing for me, nothing I could afford, but Honda had a high pipe 305 CL scrambler -- which I could afford, and did; when I re-entered the motorcycle world in midlife, I looked for a used Harley Sporster, which I couldn't afford -- but I could afford the 750 GS Suzuki inline four, and I did; and when I decided to tour the world a piece at a time with my darling wife on the back, Harley had nothing I could afford on my teacher's salary that could do that job, but Honda did, a used 1981 GL1100 Goldwing ($2349), which had 73,000 miles on it when we bought it -- and we put on 160,000 miles more; And now. after three Goldwings, one CB750 Nighthawk, one Honda Magna 700cc, and one Honda ST1300.....and after give or take 350,000 touring miles, Harley still has nothing I can afford, especially now that I'm retired, but Honda does, and seemingly always will.....

And when I get old, someday years and years from now, and feel like I'm in danger of dropping it, will I sell this beautiful, Angel-White bike? Oh, heck, no..... I'll put on an Angel-White sidecar, get an ugly black dog to ride in it, and go up into upper Kittitas county on my birthdays where Red and I and ol' Jowl Face will order three, half-charred, fatty steaks at the Past Time Tavern...... the hell with thoughts of mortality.... I plan to live forever; and so far, so good!

The Whispered Addiction.....

It's impossible to motorcycle seriously and for very long without becoming more spiritual.....   Every aspect of the earth is presented to you on a private tableau of sight, sound, and sensation --  a blue mountain horizon drawing inexorably closer, the darting and soaring of birds, the changing of light in trees and upon water, the sensation of wind moving upon you like a woman's hand.....  the earth in all it's glory ever presents itself like a wanton dancer to you, and everywhere in the rushing of the wind is the whispered promise, "yes, you are of me, you are me......feast, and rejoice!"  Once you are addicted to this promise, you can no more refuse to ride than you can refuse to breathe...  And the speed acts upon your soul like a rich sauce: knowing that you are at all times in mortal danger, that you could lose everything in less than a heartbeat, makes you an extremely grateful, extremely thankful, extremely religious, yes, religious....rider.    I'm so glad I ride.....

Tuscan Potato

Red and I worked pretty hard today, me on a ski patrol class I'm to teach and she in the yard, so afterwards we booted up and rode "Great White"up to Roslyn, Wa for dinner...but everything was closed. I guess they do that on Tuesdays up there. So we turned around and stopped at the iconic, traditional, Sunset Cafe in Cle Elum, Wa. Not exactly overcome with excitement, I ordered the "Endless Soup and Salad." "What soup," asked the friendly waitress. I almost ordered my regular Minestrone, but, on an impulse, I asked what other kind she had. "Tuscan Potato," she replied. I smirked and said, "I guess I'll have any soup with the gall to call itself 'Tuscan Potato!'" She grinned and moved off...but then she brought it, and then I tasted it, and then I gasped...... huge chunks of potato and Italian Sausage in a rich, thick, creamy soup that was absolutely, incredibly, unbelievably even...delicious. Best soup I've ever tasted.  I couldn't get enough. Ate two whole bowls with Italian bread.....considered a third bowl, but my wife's eyebrows were already disappearing with alarm up into her eyebrows, so...... blimpo.....

 Now, trust me.... if someone in the Sunset Cafe in Cle Elum, Wa., USA,  offers you a bowl of "Tuscan Potato" soup....take it! Another good thing.... looking out the window, barely able to breathe, I saw a massive, very old man with a stability cane stop and stare at our Goldwing.... he walked very laboriously and deliberately completely around it staring at the seat, the dash, the fenders, the tires, the brakes....all the while talking loudly and gesturing to his tiny old wife, who stood there patiently waiting, motionless..... after awhile they finally entered the restaurant. We had our helmets on our table, and when he saw them, he made a steady but laborious beeline directly toward me. When he arrived, finally, with his eyes barely able to peer out of his beetling brows, his good will shining from every wrinkle, he put two huge brown spotted hands down on our table, and said, "I am .....enthralled....absolutely enthralled...with your Goldwing! What year is it?" I grinned at him, couldn't help it. "It's a 2005, sir, Silver Anniversary Model......" "Well," he thundered. "It looks brand new!" I kept grinning at him, couldn't help it. "Yeah, it was pretty much a garage ornament.....want a ride?" "No," he thundered again. "If I did that, I'd try 'n buy it!" I laughed. "Yup, I'm the same way, can't keep off the thing!" He turned to me, and the unmistakable yearning and hurt was there, deep, deep down in his ancient eyes.... "Well, do it while you can, son, do it while you can....." And he moved off, painfully, a huge, good man, I think, shuffling like some old and huge bison bull toward his table... and his oblivion, very soon, I fear.   "Yes, sir," I whispered. "I shall."

A favorite ride....

My wife, Red, and I ripped off one of our favorite white liners in the Pacific Northwest

today: Ellensburg through the Yakima River canyon to the the Old Naches Highway to White Pass to Cayuse Pass to Chinook Pass, and back down to the Old Naches Highway to the Canyon...and home..... first time for both of us together on the bike this season.....   Lovely ride, and talk about bikes? Thicker than male Democrats at a porn convention! There was a time, believe me....when Red and I seemed to be the only two motorcyclists out there!  Now they're chock-a-block.....

 Two of my favorite passions, motorcycling and skiing, are very, very closely related in many ways.....both are verbs! Motorcycling and skiing are something you do... motorcycling and skiing are actions, and require volitional effort -- hence, they are not things that happen to you. They are things you do. Motorcycling and skiing are not situations, they are activities freely chosen, and they require decision after decision after decision from you, sometimes dozens of decisions within a half a minute! You are the actor, not the acted upon.... not unless you refuse to act, and then things do happen to you, and quickly!

 Motorcycling and skiing have another commonality: both are performances, dances if you will, incredibly precise and beautiful dances between the realms of earth and sky. When you ski or ride, you seem to slip from the earth, although not really; you feel almost like you're flying and the sky seems to open up to you, although it doesn't, really....... but there you are, suspended between earth and sky, totally dependent upon your own decisions or actions to determine whether you will prevail, or suffer total disaster... In other words, in that dance -- either on skis or a bike -- you're about as free as a mortal man can be, at least for awhile!

 I don't think any true happiness ever comes to you, without it being the result of something you do..... something you have an effect on.... For instance, put me in the back of an acrobatic airplane, with someone else at the controls, and give me a wild, one-of-a-kind, all over the sky ride.......and I wouldn't be as happy as if I had the knowledge and skill to handle the controls myself, even in a flat line, boring, beginner's flight.... Other than physiological or organic issues, most human unhappiness is caused by the true or the perceived lack of personal control..... give me the slightest chance to have an effect on my world, and I can go on living......happily. Take away all chances, all ability, to do that, and I shall die, and soon.

People who don't ride or ski.....how do they live, and why?

(South Tyrol, Italy, 2012)

Houston, I have a problem!

Ever have a motorcycle shut down on you, in midflight, at 70 mph? All systems just kaput, instantly and all at once! I just did, on a mental health run to Cle Elum, Washington,  and back on my clattertrap KLR 650.....

 As I coasted to a stop on Washington State's Hwy 97, my biker's mind was already grappling with explanations and solutions... No explosion, din or clatter -- so probably not a grenaded engine; no sputter, cough, or wheeze -- so unlikely to be fuel-related; so, the only alternative, something electrical....

 But what electrical? What could collapse a sweet-running KLR all at once and without warning? Spark plug lead, of course, but it's buried under the fuel tank, and if it somehow got vibrated off, I wasn't going to be able to fix the thing alongside the road anyways, and I had disabled the sidestand safety switch and the clutch override safety switch, which, if I still had them, would cause such an instant shutdown if they malfunctioned...... Hey.... Wait a minute!

I then remembered that the internet article I read years ago showing how to cut the wires to those two switches, and then solder them together bypassing the stupid things.... and how the author strongly suggested soldering rather than the much easier twist and tape method..... I have to admit I don't know how to solder, but I do know how to twist and tape, and so I did..... do you suppose?

 Yup, within seconds, I had found that one of my old school redneck twists and tapes had untwisted and almost untaped..... I pulled the remains of the rotten old tape off and re-

twisted the bare wires, and the bloody good bike fired up again most satisfactorily! On the road again......

I love solving mechanical mysteries, especially those of my own making....

My drug of choice....

Good motorcycles are powerfully addictive...and I think the reason is because, like drugs, they seem to make you more than you are. Faster, more powerful, "able to leap buildings in a single bound!" Good motorcycles provide the illusion, at least, of total freedom and power... You can change horizons as fast as you can twist the throttle; you can cross continents, rolling across borders like an unstoppable storm; you can literally extend "yourself" for hundreds and hundreds of miles.... Thousands, really, to be honest.... Those of us born to the wheel know how addictive they are, and we are good with it.

The photo below, taken on the Seward Highway in Alaska, 2005, our second trip up, is kinda how I feel about all motorcycles on nearly all days! I love the damn things; I will ride them until I die, or until I can no longer hold one up....and then I'll bolt on a sidecar and ride until I die! If Heaven hasn't got good motorcycles, than why is it called Heaven? I pity people who don't ride...how do they live, and why?  Rubber down, my Buckoes!  And keep that white line running!