The Road

What a fucking day.

The weather forecast for tomorrow put the fear into me with talk about the last thing a biker wants to hear when traveling cross country: severe thunderstorms. Yeah, not doing that. I’m leaving Colorado tonight.

I wrapped up the final financial review for work just as the sun was getting low in the sky. I hastily packed up the dry bag and cargo pods on the Yamaha, eager to hit the road and catch the last of the light. Just as I was about to put the kickstand up the security guard neighbor came and said hello for the first time all summer. He chose this moment, that magnificent bastard. Despite warily watching each other all summer (which is probably due to his security guard instincts and my anti-social instincts, going so far as to time my walks so I don’t have to talk to others), he turns out to be a friendly guy, and easy to talk to. He has an iron steed too and told me all about his favorite rides around the area. Damn, missed a chance to make a friend there. When was the last time I made a friend?

We eventually offered our valedictions and I left Columbine a little after 5pm, which guarantees a brisk-as-fuck night ride through the vast North Texas plains. It felt damn good to get the kickstand up and throttle out of the lot though. After contending with the chaos of packing up my life ahead of schedule, it feels good to see all the small parts come together and emerge with a simpler life, like pulling the framing tape from a finished painting and seeing the chaos give way to those clean lines. Almost everything I own fits on the motorcycle now, save for a few Magic cards I left with a friend. Yeah, I’m a nerd. But I'm also like a Bedouin biker, and all that's missing is a falcon to ride on my shoulder. So I’m still cool, right?

With Columbine in the handlebar mirrors I made my way down to Colorado Springs under sunset pink-purple skies and continued south east.  Stopped for gas in Pueblo, then made La Junta at 8:20pm and got gas again. Range anxiety is a thing on bikes, and mine has a range of just under 200 miles. It sounds sufficient but is scary as all hell when you’re in the frigid boonies at midnight and not sure when you’ll see another open gas station. Stopped at Taco Bell to warm up with some spicy potato soft tacos, which didn’t prepare me at all for the grueling ride through the empty plains that had been waiting to suck. The most intense chills were waiting for me in low-lying areas, and fearful of breathing in the chilling air and getting cold from both sides I decided to try to hold on to my precious heat. As I saw a descent ahead I’d take a deep breath and hold it as I went down, like how manatees do. Mile after wretched mile I used the manatee method on the empty highway, passing barely-alive towns where only a lone bar or restaurant stood amid dark buildings.

Range anxiety started to creep into me and I felt awful anxiety about not finding a gas station.  It was a constant tension, like driving a car with one headlight through a midnight storm in a strange country, hanging all my hopes on that one little light that it would hold out and bring me home. I finally found a gas station in Springfield, CO, a little podunk town on an intersection of crossroads. As I fueled up the bike I jumped up and down to warm myself before riding on to Oklahoma and beyond. It wasn’t long before I crossed the thin Oklahoma panhandle, a geographic anomaly born of slavery, and met the Texas sign that stood ominously in the dark over the highway with the lone star and tricolors hardly discernible through the bug-riddled visor. Finally rolled into the Amarillo hotel and had the kickstand down at 2:27am. Fuck, what a day.

The next morning I cleaned and waxed the chain in the hotel parking lot, reattached the cargo pods, and packed the dry bag onto the back. There is no happy medium on this trip - now it’s damn hot and muggy out, and by the time I finished loading the bike I had undone all the work of the morning’s shower. I set out on the highway a dirty boy again, heading south to Abilene in the beating hot sun. I hope I'm not killing the bike by riding it so long in such a short time and with so much weight on it... I gotta be cookin’ the block with all this nonsense.

Arrived at the Abilene AirBnB and put the kickstand down at 6:28pm after 351 miles. I’m convinced the bones in my pelvis have shifted after so many hours on the saddle and I feel like I just gave birth. Picked up some groceries and 60-proof medicine to set me straight and licked my wounds in the BnB.

The vicious slut of a microwave is too small for the popcorn bag to rotate and only a section of the bag is getting heat, so maybe a quarter of the kernels are actually popping. Fucking hell. But this is the life I’ve chosen for myself, one that dispatches creature comforts but guarantees a life different. T.H Huxley said that a man's worst difficulties begin when he is free to do as he likes, and I have no one to blame for my predicaments but myself. I’ll have to pay the popcorn price for this life.

Edit - after doing some online research I came across a YT vid of a guy folding the ends of the bag inwards so the bag can rotate. This substantially increases the popcorn yield and I’m pleased with my life again.

Left Abilene and continued south on back country roads that I’ve decided to take on this stretch. I haven't seen terrain like the sandy loess and grass fields here that have little swamps mixed in. It must be a holdover from the inland ocean that used to be here in prehistoric times. Cool. Stopped at Gorman Falls and hiked to the waterfalls in the muggy air. This place is suitably creepy for the Halloween holiday.

Left the falls and made it to Padre Island on the Gulf Coast. I’ll celebrate in the next day though… I need some 100-proof medicine now.