It started with a thwapping on my left foot.
Thwap
Like a thick cloth being whipped heavily across my boot.
Thwap
“But, There’s no cloth in front of my foot…” I think.
Thwap
I’m imagining some impossible piece of canvas beating in the wind, occasionally swinging around to slap across my laces.
I look down. There’s a grasshopper IN my shoelaces, its whole body wedged under them against the tongue of my boot.
I forget what state I was in. Ohio maybe? I’m not sure.
I was driving along, through the edges of some town when I see, for an instant, a Monarch Butterfly.
And then it hit me.
In the chest.
*whap*
Then, as they weigh so very little, the force of the wind colliding with
my chest and rushing upwards pulled it along.
Right
up
into
my
HELMET
*flappityFlappityFlappity*
“AAAAAAAHHH!!!!”
There’s a flapping papery thing stuck between my jaw and my helmet. IT’S ALIVE!
Somewhere unknown
Camping in Carlyle IL
Pics from the Sky Meadow Campground
Wind Turbine Blades
Grain Storage
Murals by E. Rhodes
Wyoming Plains
Indian Springs
Phantom Canyon Road’s southern end
Bug Spatter
Iowa Standard
My bike in The Badlands
The final morning
Today, my last day, started off about a third of the way across New York in Arkport and found me riding through another cloud. This one was just enough to shorten visibility and mist up your visor. Not like the one in Wyoming which left everything dripping. After a while I made my way past the hills that bounded it and found bright blue skies with sunlight streaming down.
I was excited. “I’m going home!” I thought, but the closer I got to home, the more I didn’t want to arrive. Even taking the Mohawk Trail on the way back through Massachusetts didn’t lift my spirits. In the end, it just didn’t feel like a homecoming. I love seeing Boston’s skyline come up over the horizon after being away. It’s always made me think “ahh, home” before. Today though, I just thought… “Maybe I should have kept going to California…”, and “I don’t want this to end.”
I walk in and the light snaps on. The stalls resemble small concrete torture rooms where you can easily wash down the blood. I’m about to sit when the light snaps off. “WTF?! Was there a switch I missed?” I start to move and they snap back on. No switch by the door. “This does not bode well.” The lights are on a timer. It is set to approximately 15 seconds after movement stops. It doesn’t notice you on the toilet. Every fifteen seconds the lights snap off and you have to wave your arms in the air to make them come back on.
I’ve reached a compromise with myself.
Turning around at the first sign of trouble really isn’t me. And, while really annoying and unsettling, the starter issue isn’t a killer. If it happens again I’ll stop at the next Kawasaki dealer I pass. I’m still not happy about driving with an iffy bike though. And, I’m still not sure that this trip is really giving me what I want for the reasons I gave yesterday. But stopping here in the middle of a non-destination, that would suck. “Yes, I drove to nowhere special and turned around.” That just doesn’t work for me.
Partially this is my fault:
Everything in the saddlebags is some degree of wet because the waterproofing on them is crap and the “Rain Cover” attempted to commit suicide the first time I tried to use it, and would have succeeded if I hadn’t thrown its drawstring through a carabiner “just in case” before setting off. The gas can tried the same thing once but failed because I put it’s handle through a carabener too.
I hate Missouri. Unfortunately, it hates me back.
It was getting late but I just wanted to get the fuck out of Missouri. I could have stopped for gas but I was all “No, I’ve got another 20 miles before i need to look. Let’s get out of this state!” Unfortunately I’d forgotten that Missouri has notably higher speed limits than all the previous states, which means I’d been going notably faster and, it turns out it shortened my range by about 40 miles. My bike doesn’t have a fuel gauge, or even a fuel light. So, when it first ran out a few miles before escaping Missouri’s grasp, I didn’t think “oh, switch to reserve, find a gas station” I thought “WTF?!” but after a minute on the side of the road I figured it out, and threw the gas from my gas can into the tank. “Problem solved.” I thought.
A map, for those of you who are curious where I went. The bottom left corner of the triangle, in Massachusetts. That’s the place you want to go. Effing gorgeous, at least this time of the year and lots of great winding roads as you approach Florida MA.
It’s the little things that bind friendships closer. That quirky look on his face as he tells you about the bug that landed on his finger. The fact that in the middle of your phone call he suddenly stopped and calmly said, “the cat just horked on my foot.”
I don’t love you because of the valuable information you tell me. I love you because of all the other things you tell me.
