David Drayer's Blog, page 2

Take the Long Way Home – Continued

It is 40 degrees when I wake up in a Pennsylvania motel. Less than ideal temperatures for a motorcycle. According to the weather forecast, if I hang around until check out, the temperature will rise another 10 degrees. Still a chilly ride, but doable.

I am in no hurry and the room is nice. I grab some coffee and a doughnut from the gas station across the way, and via email, go back and forth with my web designer. He is setting it up so anyone who visits daviddrayer.com can read the first chapter of my just-released, 3rd novel–A Noble Story–for free. So if you haven’t checked it out, please do! As I think I mentioned in another post, this novel was partly inspired by these motorcycle trips.

While I wait for it to warm up outside, I revisit some of the places this long ride home has taken me.

THE GRAVE OF F. SCOTT AND ZELDA FITZGERLD IN ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND

Sorry for the lousy picture, but you get the idea. The cemetery is small. At first, it appears that the writer’s grave has been trashed, but upon closer inspection, I realize the clutter is made up of objects left to pay homage: coins, a pen, a poem, cut flowers, a note. Someone apparently sat here and drank a beer with Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald. (Though gin would have been more appropriate; Gin Rickey was their drink of choice.)

I kneel next to the final resting place of the once fun-loving, carefree couple, living symbols of the Roaring Twenties, and feel a little sad. Their lives did not end well. Scott, his body ravaged by alcoholism, died at only 44; Zelda spent the last years of her life in a mental hospital and tragically died in a fire there.

I run my hand along the cold stone where the famous last line of The Great Gatsby is engraved: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

THE GRAVE OF EDGAR ALLAN POE IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

Keeping with the theme of the day, I stop off in Baltimore at the cemetery where Edgar Allan Poe is buried. I’m standing in front of a parking kiosk trying to get it to take my money. I can feel someone standing behind me, waiting, so I start pushing the button repeatedly as if that’s going to make a difference.

“This machine is finicky,” the person behind me says. “I park here every day.” I turn to see an attractive woman in scrubs and tennis shoes, her hair in a loose bun on top of her head. “May I?”

“Please,” I say, stepping aside.

She cancels the transaction. The machine spits out my money, she puts it back in, hits some buttons, and a few seconds later, hands me my receipt. “What would you do without me?”

“Probably get a ticket,” I say.

Looking at my motorcycle, she asks where I am going to put the receipt. I tell her I’ll stick it under the lock cover on the gas cap.

“Couldn’t someone steal it and put it on the dash of their car?”

“Easily,” I say, “but, you know, no one ever has.”

She takes her own receipt from the kiosk and says, “So is there anything else I can do for you today?”

I am about to say, “You can have a drink with me later,” when I spot the wedding ring. Damn. “No, I think I’m good,” I say, nodding toward the cemetery. “Just stopping off to visit Edgar.”

“Tell him I said hello,” she says, giving me one last smile before heading off in the direction of the hospital where she works.

Standing in front of Poe’s memorial, I wonder if he knows he finally got the recognition he deserved. He sure never got it in his lifetime. Originally, he was buried in the back of this cemetery. For years, he didn’t even have a headstone. There was just a marker that read: 80.

His death is still a mystery. He was found on the streets, incoherent and looking disheveled, wearing ill-fitting clothes. He was taken to a hospital where he went into a coma and never regaining consciousness, died several days later.

For years, alcohol and drugs were blamed, but it appears that suggestion was largely made-up and fueled by a spiteful critic who was jealous of Poe’s talent and purposely tried to keep him from finding his place in history.

There are a wide range of other compelling theories. Some believe he was murdered. Others claim it was a disease or an illness that killed him. Everything from tuberculosis to syphilis, epilepsy to diabetes  to rabies have been entertained and argued. One theory even suggests he was a victim of a voting scam called “cooping” where people were randomly kidnapped, drugged, sometimes beaten, and forced to vote in different districts for a crooked politician.

There is much written on this if you want to check it out…and believe me, Poe’s death is as shadowy and creepy as the short stories he so masterfully crafted.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BATHED HERE  – BERKLEY SPRINGS, WEST VIRGINIA

While I’m fairly certain this was never George Washington’s bathtub, the father of our country did indeed visit what is now Berkley Springs, West Virginia. Before he was the first President of the United States, he was a surveyor and wrote in his journal about visiting and revisiting the hot springs for a healthy, relaxing soak.

A MOONING SCARECROW SOMEWHERE IN VIRGINIA

Yeah, not much to say about that.

COFFEE POT SHAPED BUILDING IN BEDFORD, PENNSYLVANIA

Originally built in 1927, this was once a restaurant which used to serve lunch, coffee (of course), and ice cream.

Well, that’s it for now. Back on the road!

Take the Long Way Home

I’m heading home to spend time with family in Pennsylvania, taking a couple of days to get there, enjoying the ride and the sights along the way. In Maryland, I visited the graves of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore and F. Scott Fitzgerald in Rockville. I nearly hit a deer just outside of Winchester, Virginia, and now I’m meandering through West Virginia, heading north for Pennsylvania. I’m at the end of my second day on the road and it’s gotten too cold for riding but I’ll tough it out until the sun goes down. Then, I’ll have to get a room for the night.

I’m sitting at a red light—the only red light—in a small town in West Virginia. I often think of my Aunt Jan when I ride through this part of the state as she lived most of her adult life here and spoke with a southern twang that we kids always got a kick out of. She passed away about a year and a half ago, but memories of her make me smile.

The place I grew up in Pennsylvania was also a one-traffic-light town and my mind goes back to a night I was sitting at that single light as a fifteen-year-old boy with a learner’s permit. My mom was in the passenger’s seat and Aunt Jan was in the back. It is hard to look cool cruising with your mother and your aunt, but they had errands to run, offered to let me drive, and I needed all the practice I could get.

We had a Dodge Charger. It was a stick shift and I loved driving it, but I still had problems taking off. We came to that stoplight and damn if it didn’t turn red just as I got to it. To make matters worse, there was a group of tough guys—all older than me—hanging out at the corner gas station. I was pretending not to notice them and silently praying I could take off without any problems.

The light turned green and I stalled right in the middle of the intersection. As if on cue, the guys at the gas station started cheering and clapping and laughing. My face was on fire. In a panic, I started the car and stalled again, which really got them going. This was a fifteen-year-old boy’s nightmare. Before the light turned red again, I managed to jerk and grind my way out of the interaction and down Main Street. As soon as we got out of town, I pulled off. “Forget it,” I said, dramatically jumping out of the vehicle. “I hate this car. I’ll never be able to drive it.”

Once my mom and Jan realized that I was not getting behind the wheel again, Jan took over and I climbed in back, sulking, hating myself. Of course, Mom and Jan told me I was being ridiculous and the only way to learn a thing was to do it and failing at it was just part of the process. But that was all lost on me. I wasn’t listening. I was convinced I was a loser, my life sucked, and I would forever walk under a cloud of shame.

By the time the errands were completed and we got back to town, it was dark. “Take the side streets,” I said from the backseat. Jan ignored me. She drove right down Main Street and stopped at the red light again. The guys were still there and started hooting and hollering as soon as they saw the Charger. “Encore!” one of them shouted. “Encore!”

If I could have crawled under the seat and died, I would have. Jan egged them on by revving the engine.

“Come on, Aunt Jan!” I pleaded. “Don’t!”

She looked at me in the rearview mirror, all smiles, and said in her southern drawl, “Honey, them old boys can’t see in here at night. They don’t know it’s your fat, old Aunt Jan behind the wheel. They think it’s you.”

The light turned green and Jan peeled out, squealing the tires the whole way through the intersection. That was the very last thing those guys were expecting. They all stood there, stupefied, mouths agape, as we roared out of town.

Jan and Mom were laughing and doing a little hooting and hollering themselves at that point and I couldn’t help joining in. When we were out of town, Jan pulled over and still giggling said to me, “Next time, it’s gonna be you behind the wheel. So get your little ass up here and learn how to drive this thing!”

That’s been a long time ago, but every now and then, when I come to a lone stoplight in my travels like I did today, I remember my Aunt Jan, grin from ear to ear, and…lay a little rubber.

The Call of the Dragon: Part Two

I’m 60 miles from Roanoke and the rain isn’t going to stop anytime soon. Being cold and soaked to the bone, however, are the very least of my concerns. I can barely see the road through a foggy, rain-blurred visor, the brakes are not responding well because they are wet, and the turns that were so much fun earlier are now treacherous. I take the first outlet I come to off the parkway, which still puts me 20 miles away from the nearest town, but it’s better than 60.

I whip into the first motel I see and before I go to my room, I jog to the Food Lion across the road in search of something I can microwave later. Just as I find the soup aisle, a woman pushing a grocery cart and surrounded by a gaggle of young children says to me, “Why bless your heart, riding a motorcycle in the pouring rain. My, my.”

I’ve been around enough to know this is how a southerner calls you an idiot without actually calling you an idiot. Smirking and shaking her head, she says, “Bless your little heart.”

I return the smirk and say, “Nice hat.”

Her hand automatically goes to her yellow rain hat. She starts to say something—probably “What’s wrong with my hat?”—but then doesn’t.

Actually, there is nothing at all wrong with her hat, but I can guarantee she’ll spend the next little while wondering why I said that and feeling self-conscious about it. Bless her heart! Bless her little heart.

 

The next morning, the sun is out and the day is clear and warm. No trouble sleeping last night. Back on the parkway, I take my time, enjoy the ride, stop at the overlooks, and take a short hike. I see a lot of people alone. They get off their motorcycle or out of their car and just look out over the mountains, literally breathing it in. I talk to one guy who says he lives nearby. “I try to get up here every so often,” he says. “I never get sick of looking at it.”

I love that people are still drawn to nature in this way, still seek it out, appreciate it. When I lived on the east end of Long Island, I saw people do the same thing with the ocean. On their way to work, I saw them drive to the edge of the beach, shut down the car and just sit there in silence, watching the waves for five minutes or so before getting on with their day.

Once I get back on the road, I realize I have drifted further south than I’d originally intended and need to start heading northwest tomorrow morning if I want to ride the Dragon in Deal’s Gap, which is how this whole thing started.

As the sun starts to set, I stop for the night in a small North Carolina town. It has two motels, a gas station, a chapel, and two bars, all clumped together right off the exit. I get a room, shower off the road, and go into one of the bars for dinner where the bartender calls everyone “honey” and takes pride in knowing what her regulars drink and just how they like their burgers.

I ask her if there is a downtown area.

She laughs. “You’re in it, honey,” she says in a southern drawl. “This is all we got.”

“Works for me. Beautiful country.”

“Why thank you. Lived here my whole life. Couldn’t pay me to live anywhere else.”

She sells me on the barbecue mushroom burger and I wash it down with a couple of cold beers.

Back at the room, I break open the map and figure I am about 3 ½ hours from the Dragon. I could sleep in tomorrow and still be there by early afternoon. Except for one thing: rain.

According to The Weather Channel, it is not only raining in Deal’s Gap at the moment, but it’s supposed to continue off and on for the next several days.

If I weren’t alone, I’d consider waiting it out. But spending three days in a motel room by myself, waiting for it to stop raining? No thanks. There are much better ways to spend that time and money. Besides, the rain is coming this way and the sooner I head home, the closer I’ll get before it catches up with me.

But that’s okay. These trips are much more about the journey and the things I think about on the road than the destination. In fact, I got the idea for A Noble Story–which is very much on my mind as it will be released within the next week or so–on one of these bike trips. If you read it–and I hope you do–you’ll recognize how writing this blog influenced the book. Not only the ideas of freedom and the open road, but in the style of the writing itself.

So…the call of the Dragon will have to go unanswered this time. But this is not a forfeit, Dear Dragon. Oh no, it is merely a rain check.

I shall return…

 

 

The Call of the Dragon: Part One

It was 3:00 in the morning and I was staring at the ceiling, wide awake. This was not a rare occurrence. Even as a child, I had trouble sleeping at night. I’d wait until my parents fell asleep and I’d sneak downstairs and watch TV. It was cool when I was kid. Like a superpower. I didn’t need to sleep like regular kids. As an adult, it wasn’t so special. Going to work, for example, on no sleep was much more difficult than going to school and afternoon naps were harder to squeeze in.

But I digress. The point is I could tell it was one of those nights where I was not going to sleep at all. My mind was a circus of random thoughts and one that took hold was from an article I’d read recently about a road on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee called The Tail of the Dragon. This eleven mile stretch boasted 318 curves and dared motorcyclists from far and wide to test their skills. No, I told myself, absolutely not! It’s 3:00 in the morning! If you can’t sleep, read a book or watch television like a normal person. Besides, that has to be least 9 or 10 hours from here.

But it was too late to talk sense. I was overdue for a bike trip and I had a few free days to play with. I pulled up a map on the internet and once I realized I could take the Blue Ridge Parkway for a huge chunk of the ride, it was on! I grabbed a couple changes of clothes, a toiletry bag, motorcycle gear, and a camera I bought recently that attaches to the bike. By 3:30, I was on the road.

Even at that hour, there was traffic in the DC Metro Area. Where were all these people going at 3:30 in it morning!? Traffic was moving fast though and I went west for about 40 miles, then I started heading south on the Virginia Byways. Here, I had the road all to myself. Let me tell you, it is a special thing to be roaring through the Virginia countryside on a chilly October morning just before sunrise on a motorcycle. Bliss, I tell you, pure bliss.

I rode right into the rising sun and outside of Waynesboro, where I would pick up the Blue Ridge Parkway, I stopped at a diner for breakfast and gloriously hot coffee. After I’d shaken off the chill, I headed for the parkway. But first, I attached the camera I’d been eager to try out. I will be honest with you, the first 10 or 12 pictures I took looked like this:

The Blue Ridge Parkway is almost 500 miles of mountains and scenic beauty; it is said to be one of the most gorgeous rides in America. No argument here. I figured the camera out and got these:  

And I even managed a video…

http://youtu.be/jG7unBd0RQU

I stopped off at a Visitor Center—there are many of them on the parkway—and a very helpful but rather stern woman gave me some tips. “There’s no gas on the parkway,” she snapped. “You can’t just stop when your tank is low. You have to plan ahead.” She showed me a map. “There are only certain places where you can get off to fuel up. You just take a random side road, and you’ll end up lost.”

“I have a GPS,” I said.

“Put it away,” she said. “They don’t work down here. People get lost all the time relying on those things. You follow the map and the mile markers.” She reminds me of a football coach. Harsh, no nonsense, and yet, likable. “Once you get off at these designated places, you will have to go anywhere from one to eight miles to reach the gas station, so don’t cut it close. Play it safe. Get gas before you are low.”

I made a mental note of this as playing it safe is not my strong suit.

“How far are you going?”

“Not sure,” I said. I can tell by her expression that this is the wrong answer. “Probably the whole way.”

“It’s getting late. You’re on a motorcycle, traveling alone. I recommend you stop for the night.”

“Yeah, I was thinking I’d stop in Roanoke.”

She nods her approval. “That’s a good 90 minutes from here. You know there’s rain coming, right?”

“Yeah, but I should be in Roanoke long before it hits.”

“Should be,” she said, cocking an eyebrow ominously, “but you never know. Weather forecasters are about as accurate down here as your GPS.”

Back on the road, the ride was amazing, but less than a half hour after leaving the visitor center, the sky grew dark, the wind picked up and it started to rain.

And rain hard.

Hello Kansas – Part Two: Dodge City, Wichita, and some places in between

As I approach Dodge City, my mind is full of images of what was once “the wickedest little city” in the wild west. This was the “cowboy capital” where Wyatt Earp tried to keep order and his friend, the gunslinger, Doc Holliday, gunned down other men who lived by the gun. These illusions are shattered when I drive into a town overrun with fast food restaurants and chain hotels. There’s a Wal-mart. There’s a Dollar Store. It looks exactly like any other place.

Dear America, I hate to bother you on your birthday, but we have got to stop ruining our small towns. I know we all like convenient, cheap and quick, but it’s costing us our soul. Our countless little towns are all unique and each has its own history; we ought to embrace that. It is just no fun if every town looks exactly the same. Signed, Your Wayward, But Loving Son

I can see why my room was the last available. It reeks of stale smoke, there are cigarette holes in the comforter, I can tell they refill their old shampoo and conditioner bottles, and I don’t even want to think about where those dark stains on the chair came from. But it meets my bare minimum when I am traveling alone: the sheets are clean and so is the bathroom. I will only be here long enough to shower and sleep a few hours. I ask the girl at the front desk if they have a shuttle service. This is the same girl I talked to earlier and the poor thing is dumb as a fence post. She stares blankly at me. I repeat the question. More blank staring. Then she asks, “You mean like a taxi?”

“No.” I patiently explain the difference between a taxi and a shuttle and she says, “Oh. Well then, we don’t have shuttles. I think there is a taxi in town.”

“That will work,” I say. “Do you have a phone number?”

She tells me the hotel phone number.

“No, I mean the number of the taxi service.”

“Ahh…” she looks around for help, then says, “I don’t have that.”

Dear America, Me again. We need to do a better job educating our youth. We have a proud history and I really, really want to see it continue. I’m willing to go back to teaching English if you need me to. Signed Your Faithful, but Concerned Son

The lack of shuttle is disturbing because nothing is close to the hotel. The replica of the western town as it looked in the early 1880s is a mile east, the Boot Hill Casino is three miles northwest and tonight’s fireworks display can best be viewed two miles northeast.

To me, celebration and casino means having some drinks and having some drinks means not driving. Yes, I can walk all those miles but then I’d have to walk them all back and that doesn’t sound like much fun after being on the road all day.

While I am trying to decide my next move, I start walking in the direction of the museum. It is well done and a group of actors reenact a gunfight, complete with real guns firing blanks and staged fistfights. The kids in the crowd love it.

Since I am out, I stay out. I find some food. I find some drinks. I strike up a conversation here and there. The moment it gets dark every family in town is setting off their own fireworks. Everywhere I turn, there are bangs and pops and explosions in the sky. If you close your eyes, it sounds like…gun fire.

 The next morning, I’m back on the road. I see a lot more of Kansas and arrive back in Wichita in time to walk to Old Town. The night is hot, but I enjoy walking among the old buildings and brick-lined streets. There many places to choose from for dinner. The town is clean and the people are friendly. I stop in at Mort’s Martini and Cigar Bar for a drink and live music.

As I listen to the band do a very good cover Bob Marley’s “Stir It Up,” the images of the day flash across my mind:

 

 

Hello Kansas – Part One

I am in Wichita, Kansas for business and decide this is a great place to continue my weekend road trips. (Wichita is a great, little city, by the way, and I’ll tell you more about it in another post.) Normally, when I take my weekend road trips, the plan is to have as little of a plan as possible. A general time frame—be back in time to report to work Monday morning—and a general direction: go west! Then it is all about taking whatever road looks interesting.

However, this trip is starting in the early morning of Independence Day and going on through the weekend. A motel room will be very hard to get on the fly so a few days ago, I guesstimated where I might be at the end of the first day—Dodge City, Kansas—and reserved a room. (After endless calls, I literally reserved the last room in Dodge.)

Even though I rely mostly on a GPS to get me home, I always like to have a map. The hotel I am currently at doesn’t have one but I tell myself I’ll pick one up at a gas station along the way.

Taking the byways, I go through El Dorado and wind up through the Flint Hills in eastern Kansas. I practically have the road to myself. Wide, open spaces, mile after mile. It’s easy to forget that places like this exist when you have been living in a crowded, busy city for a while. It does my heart good to see nothing but sweet, fertile fields in every direction and breathe in all that fresh air.

 

I read about a ghost town in Lyon County and decide to find it. This is a bad idea for two reasons. One, I have a terrible sense of direction, and two, I have a reckless sense of adventure. Of course, the GPS won’t find a ghost town so I punch in a few landmarks near the supposed site and figure the GPS will keep me from getting too lost.

Wrong.

After an hour and a half, I am so turned around that I have no clue where I am, and I haven’t seen another living soul during this whole leg of the trip. The road turns to gravel and then dirt. I decide to give up on the ghost town and use the GPS to get me back to a main road but that thing is more confused than I am. It tells me to take a left into the middle of a cornfield and then to bear right into a pond. Remember that map I was supposed to pick up at a gas station?

My frustrated GPS drains the phone battery dead. I have a house charger in my backpack to recharge at the hotel, but it’s not going to do me any good out here. I shut down the engine and walk around a bit. There are thousands of grasshoppers flitting around. They land on my shirt, in my hair. It’s kind of creepy and I think this would make a good beginning to a horror story. I start jotting things down on the notepad that’s always in my back pocket, imaging what kind of weirdness could unfold.

Before I creep myself out too much, I get moving again assuming that this road has to come out somewhere. I have a quarter tank of gas left so there’s time…but the clock is ticking. Even before I started looking for the ghost town, I hadn’t seen a gas station in a long while.

Somehow or another, I manage to get back to a main road and am whipping west across the prairies, looking for a gas station. Thankfully, I find one in time, fill up, try to buy a map and a DC phone charger. No luck. So I take my wall charger into the men’s room and plug in over the sink. I pull up a map showing me that I am a long, long way from Dodge City. I look up the number of the motel there and try to cancel the room.

I tell the girl at the front desk my situation and in my friendliest voice, ask if I can cancel my reservation without penalty.

“Ah,” she says, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” I say, trying to pretend this isn’t a weird response, “Do you think you could find out?”

“Ah,” she says again, “I’m not sure.” Then, without excusing herself, she starts talking to someone in the background. “Some guy wants to cancel his room for the night,” she says to whoever she’s talking to.

“Is he on hold?”

“No.”

“Well, put him on hold.”

And then—without warning—I am hearing the muzak version of “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.”

She finally comes back with, “If someone comes in wanting your room, we will cancel it.”

“But that doesn’t help me,” I say, being patient, “I need to know, yes, you will cancel it without charging me or no, you won’t.”

She repeats what I have said to the person in the background and he says, “The policy says he can’t cancel this late. He has to pay whether he stays or not.”

Great.

I think about just eating the cost of the room, but I am not likely to find another vacancy on the fourth of July so I decide to make a run for it. Before I do, I choose the least sad looking piece of pizza circulating under a heat lamp, wolf it down with a Coke, and get back on the road.

It is a long ride. But I have a lot of thoughts in my head to sort through and this is just the way to do it.

 

A Motorcycle Trip���Denied���And Rediscovering My Front Yard

Ah, Friday! It is a beautiful day. I am thinking of riding through West Virginia! After starting work extra early this morning, I manage to finish up and be on my motorcycle by 3:15.

But today, that is still too late. Traffic is at a crawl. I need to go about 35 miles west of my apartment to break the grip of the DC Metro Area and be free to roam. But it is slow-going today. Very slow. When I am not sitting still in the middle of three lanes of west-bound traffic, my speed is averaging maybe 10 to 15 miles per hour.

After a draining, aggravating week at work, this won���t do. The heat, exhaust fumes, and finger-flipping, horn-blowing drivers has me so annoyed that by the time I would break free, I would be too agitated to care. So, I turn the bike around and head home. I can try later tonight or early tomorrow morning.

But my mind is too wired to sit at home and wait so after parking the bike, I start walking. The weather is fantastic. Bicyclists and joggers abound. I walk to Ballston and then on to Clarendon (in northern Virginia) as the last golden hours of the sun intensifies. All the swanky places have patios full of good-looking people in their best casual, yet classy summer clothes, wearing designer shades, laughing over sparkling glasses of good wine, colorful martinis, margaritas, mimosas and mugs of craft beer. The warm breeze is touched with the scent of blooming honeysuckle, fresh baked bread, spices, and grilling steak, lamb, chicken, salmon, and pork.

Though I am not��one of these hipsters, I have gotten to know them over the five years I have been here. They have fought through high-pressured jobs and confining cubicles all week for this Friday evening. These bars and restaurants are expensive, but they can afford it. Mostly, they are groups of friends and co-workers meeting for happy hours that will go on all evening long, but there are also couples meeting from dating sites, trying not to get their hopes up while secretly praying they meet the person that will finally save their lonely soul. Too, there are people rediscovering their significant others and giving themselves some well-earned credit for making it or at least staying in the game in this very competitive, mad, fast-paced region of the country.

As I walk by, I remember the��times I have been at one of these tables with endless combinations of friends, co-workers, and girlfriends over the past five years, eating whatever the latest��happy hour specials happened to be���raw oysters, steamed mussels, bruschetta, imported olives and cheeses���while��getting drunk on Belgian beers, sangria, or shots of��whiskey.

Tonight, I am alone. I can saddle up to any one of these fancy bars and strike up a conversation with the bartender or whoever is on my left or on my right, but I don���t.

Not tonight.

I stop at Trader Joe���s and pick up a good bottle of wine and some damned fine looking pork chops. Back at my place, I��spice and cook those pork chops to perfection��and wonder what tomorrow will bring.

With my��motorcycle and two free days ahead of me…anything can happen.

A Motorcycle Trip…Denied…And Rediscovering My Front Yard

Ah, Friday! It is a beautiful day. I am thinking of riding through West Virginia! After starting work extra early this morning, I manage to finish up and be on my motorcycle by 3:15.

But today, that is still too late. Traffic is at a crawl. I need to go about 35 miles west of my apartment to break the grip of the DC Metro Area and be free to roam. But it is slow-going today. Very slow. When I am not sitting still in the middle of three lanes of west-bound traffic, my speed is averaging maybe 10 to 15 miles per hour.

After a draining, aggravating week at work, this won’t do. The heat, exhaust fumes, and finger-flipping, horn-blowing drivers has me so annoyed that by the time I would break free, I would be too agitated to care. So, I turn the bike around and head home. I can try later tonight or early tomorrow morning.

But my mind is too wired to sit at home and wait so after parking the bike, I start walking. The weather is fantastic. Bicyclists and joggers abound. I walk to Ballston and then on to Clarendon (in northern Virginia) as the last golden hours of the sun intensifies. All the swanky places have patios full of good-looking people in their best casual, yet classy summer clothes, wearing designer shades, laughing over sparkling glasses of good wine, colorful martinis, margaritas, mimosas and mugs of craft beer. The warm breeze is touched with the scent of blooming honeysuckle, fresh baked bread, spices, and grilling steak, lamb, chicken, salmon, and pork.

Though I am not one of these hipsters, I have gotten to know them over the five years I have been here. They have fought through high-pressured jobs and confining cubicles all week for this Friday evening. These bars and restaurants are expensive, but they can afford it. Mostly, they are groups of friends and co-workers meeting for happy hours that will go on all evening long, but there are also couples meeting from dating sites, trying not to get their hopes up while secretly praying they meet the person that will finally save their lonely soul. Too, there are people rediscovering their significant others and giving themselves some well-earned credit for making it or at least staying in the game in this very competitive, mad, fast-paced region of the country.

As I walk by, I remember the times I have been at one of these tables with endless combinations of friends, co-workers, and girlfriends over the past five years, eating whatever the latest happy hour specials happened to be—raw oysters, steamed mussels, bruschetta, imported olives and cheeses—while getting drunk on Belgian beers, sangria, or shots of whiskey.

Tonight, I am alone. I can saddle up to any one of these fancy bars and strike up a conversation with the bartender or whoever is on my left or on my right, but I don’t.

Not tonight.

I stop at Trader Joe’s and pick up a good bottle of wine and some damned fine looking pork chops. Back at my place, I spice and cook those pork chops to perfection and wonder what tomorrow will bring.

With my motorcycle and two free days ahead of me…anything can happen.

Part Two: “Everybody’s got a hungry heart…”

Still heading north, I’m cruising along the Susquehanna in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania and see the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the river.

Wait. What?

There is no place to stop. Traffic’s moving fast. I whip off the exit, turn around, and head back. I don’t see it this time. Then…there it is: Lady Liberty—or rather a small replica of her on top of what looks like a piece of an old bridge. But still, I can’t get off anywhere to take a picture. So you’ll just have to take my word for it: there’s a Statue of Liberty in the middle of the Susquehanna River.

The next interesting thing I come upon is the little town of Millersburg which happens to have the only surviving ferry service across the Susquehanna. According to the surrounding signage, it was started in 1825 when it was moved by men using poles. Later, they went to a paddlewheel, steam engine, and in the 1920s, gasoline.

There a line of cars and a group of bikers waiting. “Where does it take you to,” I ask an old fella leaning against his pickup, a wad of tobacco in his cheek. “Liverpool, Pennsylvania,” he tells me.

Looks like I’m going to Liverpool.

The guy tells me it takes 25 minutes for the ferry to arrive when they see people waiting to cross. Stiff from hours on the bike, I use the opportunity to stretch out and walk around. After 40 minutes, there’s still no ferry. I walk back over to the old fella, who checks his watch, scratches his bald head, and says, “Something’s not right.”

The ferry does arrive ten minutes or so later and no more than docks till the guy running it (the ferry captain?) comes up the hill looking apologetic. Turns out the ferry had broken down in the middle of the trip. “We got across,” he says, “but there won’t be any more trips till we get it repaired. Sorry folks.”

“Will that happen today?” a burly biker dude wants to know.

“No sir. Not today. Sorry.”

The biker looks all dejected. “I really wanted to ride that thing,” he says to his other biker buddies. “I put it on Facebook and everything.”

So…I guess I’m not going to Liverpool.

Oh well, I get back on the road. Even though this is just a spur of the moment, weekend trip, I want to keep going, keep heading north, maybe up through Potter County and on into upstate New York. And why stop there? Why not keep going through the Adirondacks and on into Canada? First stop there: Montreal, which I hear is a great city.

There’s something in me that always wants to keep going. That’s what inspired the novel I just finished writing called, A Noble Story.

It’s still very much in my head. Part of the reason for this trip was to celebrate the completion of it, as I’ve been cooped up writing it all winter long. It was a fun book to write, though. I needed something a little lighter after writing Something Fierce, and this was just right. I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who read my novels, but let’s just say, for one character, it answers the question, “What if you did just keep going?”

If I have any intention of being at work on Monday morning, I have to start working my way south, back to the DC area. A strain of Springsteen echoes through my mind: “Like a river that don’t know where its flowing/ I took a wrong turn and I just kept going…”

Oh baby, that’s tempting. Lord knows, I’ve done crazier things in my life.

But today, I turn the motorcycle around, finding a different route home, hitting new places all along the way.

Here’s some of what I saw:

Hershey, PA – Had to stop there!

Harrisburg – State Capitol of PA

Somewhere in Maryland…

Harrisburg

 

 

Part Two: “Everybody’s got a hungry heart…”

Still heading north, I’m cruising along the Susquehanna in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania and see the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the river.

Wait. What?

There is no place to stop. Traffic’s moving fast. I whip off the exit, turn around, and head back. I don’t see it this time. Then…there it is: Lady Liberty—or rather a small replica of her on top of what looks like a piece of an old bridge. But still, I can’t get off anywhere to take a picture. So you’ll just have to take my word for it: there’s a Statue of Liberty in the middle of the Susquehanna River.

The next interesting thing I come upon is the little town of Millersburg which happens to have the only surviving ferry service across the Susquehanna. According to the surrounding signage, it was started in 1825 when it was moved by men using poles. Later, they went to a paddlewheel, steam engine, and in the 1920s, gasoline.

There a line of cars and a group of bikers waiting. “Where does it take you to,” I ask an old fella leaning against his pickup, a wad of tobacco in his cheek. “Liverpool, Pennsylvania,” he tells me.

Looks like I’m going to Liverpool.

The guy tells me it takes 25 minutes for the ferry to arrive when they see people waiting to cross. Stiff from hours on the bike, I use the opportunity to stretch out and walk around. After 40 minutes, there’s still no ferry. I walk back over to the old fella, who checks his watch, scratches his bald head, and says, “Something’s not right.”

The ferry does arrive ten minutes or so later and no more than docks till the guy running it (the ferry captain?) comes up the hill looking apologetic. Turns out the ferry had broken down in the middle of the trip. “We got across,” he says, “but there won’t be any more trips till we get it repaired. Sorry folks.”

“Will that happen today?” a burly biker dude wants to know.

“No sir. Not today. Sorry.”

The biker looks all dejected. “I really wanted to ride that thing,” he says to his other biker buddies. “I put it on Facebook and everything.”

So…I guess I’m not going to Liverpool.

Oh well, I get back on the road. Even though this is just a spur of the moment, weekend trip, I want to keep going, keep heading north, maybe up through Potter County and on into upstate New York. And why stop there? Why not keep going through the Adirondacks and on into Canada? First stop there: Montreal, which I hear is a great city.

There’s something in me that always wants to keep going. That’s what inspired the novel I just finished writing called, A Noble Story.

It’s still very much in my head. Part of the reason for this trip was to celebrate the completion of it, as I’ve been cooped up writing it all winter long. It was a fun book to write, though. I needed something a little lighter after writing Something Fierce, and this was just right. I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who read my novels, but let’s just say, for one character, it answers the question, “What if you did just keep going?”

If I have any intention of being at work on Monday morning, I have to start working my way south, back to the DC area. A strain of Springsteen echoes through my mind: “Like a river that don’t know where its flowing/ I took a wrong turn and I just kept going…”

Oh baby, that’s tempting. Lord knows, I’ve done crazier things in my life.

But today, I turn the motorcycle around, finding a different route home, hitting new places all along the way.

Here’s some of what I saw:

Hershey, PA – Had to stop there!

Harrisburg – State Capitol of PA

Somewhere in Maryland…

Harrisburg