We went for twelve days; a long ride. Some' like 5000 miles. Down into the United States and back.
We rode hard. So hard that there was nothing to comprehend; just live. Just be. Wind whipped, throttle happy. Only now do I begin to relay it. And relay it I do.
Welcome.
Day 1 of 12
To leave the city, before 6 AM. To first light, coming. Some, some call it the dawning and that works well.
We ride through landscapes, endless. We rode for 13 hours, and 500 miles.
Day 2 of 12
We woke in some damp green patch in a semi-arid desert in Washington. Artificial in grandeur, we woke to sprinklers drowning our tent.
We ride through a strange blue-collar town, stop to drink cheap Mexican coffee from styrofoam cups. People look at the bikes. A large man opens a sliding window of some All-American diner, asks where we are from.
We continue on. Up a hill and into Oregon. The plateaus and plains do come again. We ride through dips and swoops and long straight stretches. Sometimes I lose sight of him over a bend, only to find him again, and lose him over the next. "Eyes on the Prize," And I always find him again.
Day 3 of 12
Day three we make it to Idaho. The backs of cars say "Famous Potatoes"; that's the license plate slogan in Idaho.
Around noon we stop for coffee. It is from the faded porch of a general store that we meet Cat + Duck. They too are on the road. They ride vintage Harleys. Duck rides a 1968 Electra-Glide; he has put over 400,000 miles on it. Cat rides a 1975 Super-Glide, she has put over 250,000 miles on it.
Duck says:
We ride until they break. When they break I fix them. Then we ride until they break.