When riding a motorcycle at night, what you mustn't do is "outrun your headlight." Meaning, ride so fast that you can't stop for obstacles that appear at the end of the beam.
When living, unfortunately, you inevitably outrun your headlight. That is, you live long beyond the last year of age you pictured when you were young, and still making pictures of your life.
At 30, I was still able to judge my life and to some extent even live it based on what I'd imagined it might be, what I'd wanted it to be.
But at 40—with a child but no parents, with a 15-year marriage and a 30-year mortgage, with a head full of dueling truisms and a heart where love and worry jostle senselessly for chamber space—I have outrun my headlight.
So along with my old college roommate who also turned 40 this year, I'm channeling all my uncertainty into a single line—a motorcycle track, from Chicago to Cleveland to Buffalo to Montreal to Quebec City to Fredericton, New Brunswick to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I'm sure other people have traveled from here to Nova Scotia before, but finding a single road map has proven impossible. To see the whole journey on a single map, I have had to awkwardly tape together six sheets from two North American atlases. They make an ungainly diagonal, bottom to top, left to right. The scale of each differs a bit, so that once you get to Nova Scotia, the getting-back maps—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York—don't fit.
I’m hoping it’s a two-way trip. But it’s a one-way map.
In the beginning of Jupiter's Travels, the 30-year-old book about riding a motorcycle around the world, Ted Simon writes that after weeks of planning the trip as an enthralling obsession, on the eve of his departure "I looked at the absurdly overloaded Triumph … and had my first cruel glimpse of the reality of what I was embarking on. My vision had been dazzled by the purple drama of warfare and banditry. Now I saw, with awful clarity, that a large part of my life henceforth would be devoted to the daily grind of packing and unpacking this poor, dumb beast.
"'It's impossible,' I whispered."
I'm beginning to know how he feels.
Back here in late July ….
***
PROGRESS UPDATES
6/27 Chicago to Cleveland
6/28 Cleveland to Lakeville, N.Y.
6/29 Lakeville (over top of Finger Lakes and up through Adirondacks) to Prattsburgh, NY.
6/30 Trois-Rivieres, Quebec
7/1 Kamouraska, Quebec
7/2 Sheeiac, New Brunswick
7/3 Hawksbury, Nova Scotia
7/4 Ingonish, Nova Scotia
7/5 St. Peters, Nova Scotia
7/6 Louisbourg, Nova Scotia
7/7 Liscombe, Nova Scotia
7/8 Digby, Nova Scotia
7/9 Portland, Maine
7/10 Woodstock, New Hampshire
7/11 Nevermind, Vermont
7/12 Lake George, New York
7/15 Binghamton, New York
7/16 Warren, Pennsylvania
7/17 Cleveland, Ohio
7/18 Chicago
Enjoy the adventure David! Safe travels.
Sounds like a real journey of a lifetime. I think it’s a very cool thing to do.
Enjoy, stay safe etc.
Sean
@flemingsean
As always, good luck and Godspeed.
If you die, can I have all your books?
Steve C.
If you die, can I have all your books?
Steve C.
Thanks for the good wishes, all.
Steve: You already have all my books.
Happy trails.
Have fun! When you get back, look up Ewan McGregor’s Motorcycle Diaries. He and a buddy travel from Scotland to South Africa on their bikes. Maybe after you’re done with Chicago-to-Nova Scotia, you can check out his itinerary. 🙂
Thanks, Suki. But I’ll settle for interesting trails. Happy would be a bonus.
Kasia, that McGregor thing–the first one, actually, where they go from London around the world to the east–was the inspiration for this trip, actually.
Steve, if you die, can I have all of David’s books?
Ron:
Yes. But I don’t have ALL of them yet. So David will have to die, then I’ll have to die, for you to inherit.
If I die first, then you can have all my books, and MANY of David’s books, which he has given me over the years.
But you’re better off if we both croak. David first, so his books come to me. Then me.
Steve C.
Ron:
Yes. But I don’t have ALL of them yet. So David will have to die, then I’ll have to die, for you to inherit.
If I die first, then you can have all my books, and MANY of David’s books, which he has given me over the years.
But you’re better off if we both croak. David first, so his books come to me. Then me.
Steve C.
Blogs are so interactive where we get lots of informative on any topics nice job keep it up !!
Motorbiking, Mortality and Mendacity. What a great combination.
Invigorated my magic and got my groove back in Barcelona. Eager for visionquest post-analysis. Savor it all~ Lsis
I hope your trip is going well. I just did a two day ride on a borrowed bike. It was an absolute blast, but after 8 1/2 hours in the saddle my lower back and butt hurt so bad, I wanted nothing more than to get off the bike and stand upright. I hope your taking enough breaks and perhaps only riding 4 or 5 hours a day. I expect to see some photos!
Hey Bruce–
My haunches were damned sore after the 360-mile first-day ride from Chicago to Cle., but they somehow got used to the rigors, and did fine as long as I occasionally stood on the pegs as I glided through a town. We’ve been riding seven hours a day on average, and it’s begun to feel like the most natural thing in the world.
“It’s going to be so weird not doing this every day,” Tom said last night.
As anxious as I am to get home this weekend, I do think I’ll break up that Cle-Chi return ride into two halves–to save my haunches, and to savor the last ride.
Hey David – are you in Cleveland tomorrow? Let’s have lunch, or breakfast, or a beer. Sean@communicationammo.com
Oops, I can’t read a calendar. You’re arriving here today. Ack! How about breakfast Saturday the 18th before you go?
Go David and go Tribe!!!!!
Sorry, Sean, would have loved to meet, but I blew in and out. Made it home (sweet home) last night. Next time I’m in town, though, I’d love to meet. Maybe for breakfast AND beer?
How did you find the road users in Quebec?
Hope you steered clear of Montreal in that respect.
Not particularly bad, AngeloStore, but then I’m from Chicago. Cities in general are a pain to ride motorcycles in, and though I wanted to stay longer in both Quebec City AND Montreal, we were quickly frustrated by traffic in both cities and moved on.