Excerpt from Vikings On Two Wheels

Our bikes were down under in the parking garage and we wandered down to search for answers among the cars and campers that were stuffed efficiently in the huge open, metal maw of the ship.  Perhaps the big, overland trucks were more attuned to us and our mode of travel than were the cars?  Nomadic with destinations changing daily. 

We could picture the huge trucks drinking beer with their rowdy pals while the campers cowered and said nothing.  Perhaps the white BMW’s and Audi’s conversed, smoking silver-tipped cigarettes while the Volkswagens stared lackadaisically into the unknown, uninterested in anything.  Perhaps somewhere in the steel-tubing and sprockets of the few bicycles parked among the countless cars, campers and trucks, more pleasing, more thoughtful conversations were taking place like their ability to sneak into the back doors of towns silently and take in unnoticed worlds. 

Being invisible on roadways and how dangerous it sometimes was, but most of the time reminding each other how refreshing, having to notice the world around them, being forced to be self-aware and aware of their surroundings, being able to taste the air and feel every bump and every temperature change.  Perhaps they chatted about the ability to not be involved and silently roll out just as secretly as they rolled in. 

Maybe they were talking about how time slowed down, how they were not a beast on a road, but a ghost in the twilight, coming and going but always in limbo, blending with all of the worlds but belonging to none.  I turned over the sprocket just to be a part of their conversation.