I Could Get Into That

                    To everything - turn, turn, turn
                    There is a season - turn, turn, turn
                   And a time to every purpose under heaven

                                   -From “Turn, Turn, Turn” by Peter Seeger

There are lots of reasons for my late-in-life affair with one wheel drive vehicles (motorcycles, that is).  I love the mental state it takes for me to approach perfect situational awareness, the exhilaration of accelerating from a dead stop through six gears, feeling the power of an engine that’s linked to my brain through the tips of my fingers and drinking in the ridiculously beautiful land the bike carries me over and through.  

But, more and more, what gets me on the bike is the turns.

Carving a big boxer twin through a series of turns, especially with a change of altitude thrown into the mix, and we’re talking about serious fun.  Left, right, up, down.  Picking a line through the tar snakes as I roll like a rock down the continental divide; leaning into a long sweeper and then heeling it all the way over and squirting through the next turn.  It is a physical sensation that is close to skiing...gliding down the mountain, carving turn after turn after turn.   It is hypnotic, mesmerizing, Zen-like and, to paraphrase Robert Plant, a whole lotta fun.  You feel me?

I live near some of the most heralded motorcycling terrain anywhere in the US.... the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Smoky Mountains.  North Georgia, eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina.  The southern Appalachian Mountains is performance-bike-heaven and has some of the best twisties and sweepers anyone could want.  It is a genuine Motorcycle Destination and I’m very grateful to have these world class roads in my back yard. 

But there is this one little thing that keeps nagging at me.

Allow me to digress.

Five years ago, my son Jon and I spent a couple of weeks fly fishing in Montana and Wyoming.  We spent time on the Bighorn River, Slough Creek, the North Fork of the Shoshone, Armstrong's Spring Creek and the Yellowstone River.  This was Jon's first trip West and he'd been awakened to the supremacy of fly fishing for big wild trout on big western rivers.  Our last stop was Livingston, MT where we had come to do two things. 

The first was to be humiliated on the gin-clear spring creeks that emerge from cow pastures along both sides of the great Yellowstone River and that hold an astonishing number of big, picky wild trout. 

And the second was to spend a day in a drift boat floating the Yellowstone River in search of (hopefully, more cooperative) big, wild rainbow and brown trout. Talk about your destinations...this, sir, is world class fly fishing.

To get to Livingston we drove from Cody, WY.  Our route took us through some jaw dropping country, including a drive over the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway which was surreal...made so by the murderous-looking storm clouds rolling in from the west.  

Sometimes the sun would find a way to slip between the clouds and then it would go all biblical-looking;  we’d have yellows and purples and reds in places they didn’t belong.  It became a scene from an old master’s oil painting.

As we topped one of the high mountain passes the weather system finally paid off with a genuine Rocky Mountain summer T-storm. 

Thunder and lightning, wind and cold, hail and rain, cats and dogs living together....the works.  In the midst of the mayhem, I began noticing folks riding motorcycles.  I didn’t know it at the time, but on our way to a Fly Fishing Destination, we had stumbled into a Motorcycle Destination.  Weather-be-damned, these people were here for the views and the roads; they were here to carve the turns.

That night I went to our hotel parking lot to get something from the car.  I began seeing people coming into the underground garage on motorcycles and I’ll never forget the impression they made on me.  I was struck with their rugged, purpose-built bikes and weatherproof suits.  It was clear, from the mud on their boots, the wild looks in their eyes and their tanned faces, that they’d been in the elements all day.     

“Damn”, I thought, “I could get into this”.  Right then and there, I decided that I wanted to feel what those people had experienced that day.   The mountains, the roads, the bikes, the cold air, the rain, the wind.  All of it.

Fast forward five years and I’m now on my fourth touring bike; my third BMW at that. 

I’ve logged 25,000 miles and have gone from total noob all the way to advanced beginner.  But I have achieved a very high level of passion for this sport.  I don’t recall being quite this smitten with any other interest...guitars,  woodworking, fly fishing, hell, even bicycling...all pale in comparison.

Back to that “one little thing”. 

I still have this one recurring mental image of me sitting on my BMW at some western pass...might be on the Chief Joseph Highway or Beartooth Highway.  Or maybe I’ve pulled over along side the Snake River north of Jackson to photograph the Grand Tetons.

Or I’m running alongside the Yellowstone River down in Paradise Valley or parked in front of The Murray Hotel on a sunny Saturday afternoon. 

Ok, I lied...there isn't one image, there are lots.  Given enough time and inattention, mental images like these usually fade away and become powerless to affect me.   But sometimes these images become richer and more detailed and can coalesced into a Vision.   And a Vision has the power to compel me, to force me to act. 

In time, this particular Vision blossomed.  It was eventually Discussed Out Loud.  Then agreement was reached that it Sounded Like Fun and was declared to be Something We Should Do.  Maps Were Consulted and Mileage Was Calculated.  Recognize the symptoms?  Mental health professionals refer to this as The Slippery Slope. 

As the possibilities were identified, Vision-creep set in.  The plan expanded to include touring all of the western National Parks through 10 states, adding a buddy and adding our wives.  We found ourselves needing first class airfare, luxury hotels, shopping in Aspen, a dog sitter, a new bike and a new camera.  The Vision had ballooned to 5 weeks and 5,000 miles and promised to vaporize a good chunk of my children’s’s inheritance.   Sweet Baby Jesus, is this negotiable?

Truth be told, the Vision had bloated to the point of being undo-able for a man of my age, abilities and assets.  I recognized this, as did my buddy KC.  And so, with surgical precision and his uncanny ability to plan a route, the Vision was pruned.  Saving “this” for another trip and canceling “that” for good measure, we began tuning the Vision into something that made sense for two guys old enough for Medicare.  But understand this, the current Vision is no slouch and has me wondering if I can deal with it’s reality...2,200 miles through the Rockies, three weeks on the road and 10 days living on a bike.. But, the most ominous aspect is having to lock into travel dates months in advance.  There’ll be no shopping for a weather window like a proper retiree should do.  On “the” day...we roll.  Period.  I assure you, there’s a lot Murphy can do with a plan like this.  To Murphy, I say simply, "Go fuck yourself".

So, the dates have been agreed on and the basic plan has been laid out...in September the two of us will trailer our bikes to Denver, stash the trailer and bikes, pick up our wives (Lucy and Ethel) at the airport, enjoy 4-5 play days with them in the Rockies and then drop them back at the airport. We’ll park the truck, unload the bikes and it will be at this point that we'll begin converting the Vision into Memories.  The view from thirty thousand feet is this...we will ride north for five days through Colorado, Wyoming and Montana to Glacier NP, cross over Going-To-The-Sun Road and then, over the following five days, head back to Denver along a roughly parallel route.  Once back to Denver, we’ll load the bikes up and two days later, “adventures” notwithstanding, we’ll arrive at our homes and will check the Vision off the Bucket List.

I am calling this Vision “Tour the Rockies”.

One last thing.  There is something, beyond the Vision, that I hope to accomplish.   I hope that somewhere along this route someone will see my rugged and purpose built BMW bike, will take note of my sunburned face and the wild look in my eyes and will say to themselves, ”Damn, I could get into that”.