Across time, across space. I see you. When and where you are reading this, this is an encounter. Right now. Your trembling nakedness, your shadows, your making-it-up-as-you-go, they are seen. From where I sit, our world seems inadequate, the past made by gods who out-stature us, yet are also now hopelessly outdated; just as your gods fail you. You are not uniquely confused, exposed, alone. You are like me. I do not know you, but I, too, tremble. I do not know the contours of your skin, yet I know its softness. I do not know your bones, yet I know their infirmity. I do not know your brokenness, yet I know what it means to lose a heart. I do not know you. I will never meet you. But I love you. Please know that.
One day, a distraught man walks into a bar near Harvard University and asks the bartender: “How much for your cheapest whiskey?”
The bartender says, “Our well whiskey is $10 a shot, sir.”
The man takes one and begins pouring his heart out to the bartender. “My marriage is falling apart. It’s so terrible. For months, it feels like we’re either fighting or not talking. Our marriage can’t last much longer. I don’t know what else to do but come here and talk bullshit with you and drink.”
He carries on, and a man walks up to him confidently. He says, “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. You don’t need to talk to a bartender. You need to talk to a Marriage and Family Therapist. I happen to be a professor of Marriage Counseling. I can solve your problem.” The man is overjoyed and asks what he needs to do. The therapist says, “Make an appointment with me. I charge $120 an hour.”
Seeing his dismay at the given price, another man walks up, even more confidently. He says, “Oh, no no. I’m a professor of psychology at Harvard. The man explains at length that Marriage Counseling is just an extrapolation of the principles of psychology, and therefore, “you should make an appointment with me instead. I’ll charge $150 an hour.”
Another man walks up, even more confidently. He says between laughs, “Oh, you poor bastard, don’t listen to him. I’m a professor of biology, and as we all know, psychology is just applied biology.” The man says, “Really? Well, how much do you charge?” The biologist scratches their chin and says “You know, I never really thought about it, but if that guy gets away with charging $150 an hour, I’ll charge $180.”
Seeing the man bit frazzled, a third man walks up, even more confidently, and says “Oh, don’t let these people confuse you. I’m a professor of chemistry, and biology can all be explained by chemistry. Since this is clearly what you need, you may as well pay me $200 an hour.”
The man now quite overwhelmed, a fourth man struts his way into the fray, easily swaying the men around him aside. “As you all know, none of your fields can touch the explanatory power of physics, which I happen to be a professor of. I can rearrange your marriage with scientific precision, and I’ll do it for $250 an hour.”
Utterly beleaguered, the man puts his head in his hands. He hears a sullen laugh from the corner of the bar. Everyone turns to look, and there is a suave gentleman in the corner. “I’m a professor of mathematics. As you all know, everything — psychology, biology, chemistry, and even physics is basically just math. I’ll solve your problem for…”
Soon, the professors are all bickering, and the bartender begins laughing. While they are fighting among themselves , the man says the bartender, “Isn’t this crazy? I know they all explained it to me, but I don’t see how the mathematician is going to fix my marriage.” The bartender agrees and says, “You don’t need to talk to a mathematician.”
The man is glad someone seems to be making sense, but then the bartender tells him: “You won’t get anywhere in mathematics until you define your first principles, clearly define the nature of inference, and understand the principles of epistemology. Mathematics is just an expression of the ideal forms, which are just thoughts in the mind of God…”
As the bartender goes on, the man asks, “How do you know all this?” The bartender says, “I have a PhD in Philosophy.”
The man replies, “Ok then. How much will YOU charge to solve my problem?”
The bartender answers, “Like I said, sir, the well whiskey is $10 a shot.”
It is a common critique of spiritual people that they can only be spiritual when they are in a lovely garden retreat center, or snorting up distilled oils, or seated on a “spiritual” meditation cushion – even one’s ass can be spiritual, for a price. To be spiritual is to be lovely, soft, to smell like lavender. To be un-spiritual is, I guess, to wear tight-fitting clothes or to wear distinctly un-chunky jewelery. Google certainly seems to agree – go search “spiritual style” and note the bohemian supermodels in man-buns and earth-toned hoodies and mandalas on everything.
Doesn’t get much more spiritual than Jared Leto in this get-up.
I both lob this critique at some, to deconstruct one form of spirituality I find distasteful, and intend to answer it with another, which I also find distasteful – don’t ask me to choose one – by pointing out that traditionally, in the medieval sense, the alternative has been the norm: prove how spiritual you are by showing how much discomfort and pain you can endure. Sit on your knees on a stone mountain. Meditate in a steaming-hot room. Whip yourself with this thing, like that guy in the Dan Brown movie. (Also for a price.)
The unfortunate conclusion one may draw from this is that pain is spiritual, or that one’s inability to endure physical pain and discomfort is indicative that one is not spiritual, or at the very least not disciplined. Taken in less extreme forms: if one is unhappy because of pain in one’s back, because of the ugliness of our neighborhood, because of a collection of small frustrations in one’s life, one is un-spiritual.
It seems to me that we may psychologically make a choice – a fuzzy one, made by degrees, not in an absolute binary – between becoming more sensitive to the aesthetic side of life. (By aesthetic, I mean broadly any experience which we find pleasurable on a sensational level.) Both of these paths are open to us as individuals to cope with the contingency of life (and to the patient of a psychotherapist, or the student of a spiritual teacher, etc.): engage with beauty and remain open to ugliness, or transcend ugliness and become closed to beauty. Aesthetics / Transcendence. Fragility / Deadness. We cannot prescribe one without risking its side-effect.
I think of my work as a therapist, saying to a patient: You may overcome your ugly, uncomfortable, or painful life situation because it is really not so bad. The implication being: you are merely inadequate to meet it. You must simply learn to detach yourself from the sound of traffic and train horns and airplanes outside your window. These do not make it impossible to relax. You only need to learn how to become “non-dual” and realize the perfection of every moment.
The reductio above hopefully communicates two obvious problems: one, how many people are realistically able to do this? Like, actually do it, without creating an even worse pathology? Two, most therapists / spiritual coaches lead at least somewhat comfortable lives, economically speaking, and saying this kind of a thing to someone who is, say, very sick or financially struggling, let’s say, has bad optics. However, the deeper problem contained in this move, even if one is super-spiritual and seeks to transcend their shitty situation, is the idea that all ugly aesthetics of life – and we have established that aesthetics is embodied, related to our physical well-being – can be surpassed only if we are spiritual enough. We thus arrive at R. D. Laing’s schizoid consciousness, or Hegel’s stoic way of living. Doing this accomplishes the goal of lessening the suffering of life, but comes at a cost, as Laing and Hegel both show, eventually leading to deadness, impotence, disconnection from the world – in a word, depression. (Laing actually believed it lead to psychosis, which is possible, but beyond the scope of this here sketch of an idea.)
Let this diagram from The Divided Self summarize all that right up.
I have often felt that, through the people I have met in my life, the ones I experience as truly “alive” – vibrant, colorful, filled with life – are the ones who are aesthetic, sensual, engaged with how things actually feel and look, and whose moods are thus sensitive to them. Those I’ve encountered who are stereotypically “spiritual” – stoic, removed, untouchable, above it all – invariably have a certain dead-ness to them, a lack of liveliness, a feeling that anything at all is occasion for happiness, celebration, and joy – and thus, there is no thing in the world that is sad, ugly, crass, cliché. As a form of neurotic avoidance, I do not mean to say this is inferior – it is a coping technique that allows for certain virtues the aesthete cannot embody, and certainly the aesthete has their own set of problems. I am pointing out that it comes at a cost.
It is a terrible thing to admit we are at the mercy of the aesthetics of the world around us because it shows us we are at the mercy of our own vagaries, of our often un-alterable environment. It is also a terrible thing to admit that trying to transcend this tenuousness comes at the cost of our vibrancy. This is the double-bind I am trying to capture here.
Oh, not solving it, no. Just becoming aware of it, naming it, feeling out its texture, so as not to run blindly into it, as healer or patient.
First, the nitty gritty: I made it into Pittsburgh late on Sunday, July 25th to an Air Bnb. After a night and a morning to recover, I then set out on my main mission: find a place to live while I go through my doctorate program. Mission accomplished. Two days later, I was on the road again for the wedding of my friends Morgan and Aaron in Winchester, VA.
I’ll let the professionals do the heavy lifting on the photographs. For now, this picture of whiskey on my motorcycle can say enough.
Now, I find myself in a bit of a limbo: my apartment won’t be ready until August 3rd, and Pittsburgh is only a few short hours from where I am now. The attendees have gone back to their lives, and the festivities have died down. What to do, what to do.
Speaking of dying down, the steam started to run out of my plan to post every day around the time I got home to Louisville, KY on July 22nd. There were just too many people to see, too many things to do, too many naps to be taken; and while the journey was not over, the feeling of home perhaps took out much of the impetus to write.
After the excitement of seeing my dog again, we both found it all to be a bit much.
I’m writing again after reflecting on the amazing number of people I’ve met on the road this journey: old friends, new friends, or even simply small encounters — the barista who gives me a free cup of coffee, the librarian at Duquesne who gave me the lowdown on the campus, the . I am truly terrible about taking pictures, so while a literal collage isn’t possible due to that, I can hopefully keep a collage of them in writing:
A friend with impeccable timing from Uganda, who arrived in Washington the day before I was leaving
A Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, who after a long career in counseling grew a winery; his equally fascinating geneticist partner; and their good bois, Gus and Paco
An off-duty bartender, her friend (the on-duty bartender), and her partner, who showed me how friendly Salt Lake City can be
A blast-from-the-past friend and former bandmate from Owensboro, KY (of all places) and his wonderful partner, who showed me another side of the LDS church
A wise, spiritual friend with a teaching spirit and a mutual hunger for real conversation and connections
A homeless teenager in my hostel, whose conflicting desire between a life of adventure and the security of a home became projected on my own journey
A former English professor and full-time nice guy, who happened to be in the same town at the same time, giving valued tips for the academic life
A fellow motorcycle-tripper, the first I’ve met on the road doing the same thing as me — though much longer, riding around the US since June 1st!
One of my favorite couples, who I caught on their last day before leaving for their new life teaching in South America — an adventure to far surpass my own, to be sure
My sister and her family, while seeing her incredibly talented son play a live show, with as much talent on the piano as a teenager than musicians decades older
Of course, my wonderful mother, my grandmother, my aunt & uncle, and Foxy (who is still my dog, truly)
And so. Many. People. At the wedding of Aaron and Morgan Minor. Far too many to list here, from Morgan’s family, old and new friends from Uganda, to the Belgian jockey with the great stories, to everyone celebrating life that night
I’ve been incredibly fortunate that my paths could cross with all of these people, my only regret being not connecting with more. (I deeply apologize to folks on the way I didn’t hit up or just missed — there were many of you I still wanted to see!)
Despite this blessing, I’ve been asked if I get lonely on the road. Many find it strange, or unimaginable to travel solo; some even express concern at my not knowing anyone where I stay, or even not knowing where I am staying. They try (sometimes successfully) to connect me with people they know in the area, an effort always appreciated, but never relied upon.
The truth is, yes, my heart does get lonely on the road, just like my back does ache and my eyes do get heavy. As I described in one of the first blogs for this trip (Seattle to Pitt #2), the solitude can be a refreshing breeze or a cold wind, depending on the day and the mood. And equally true is the fear of starting a life in a new city, where I don’t know many people, with the future uncertain personally, politically, existentially. And just like the aches, I relieve my loneliness when I can, or take a break from solitude when it’s too much; but it’s part of the package of the unknown, with the beauty and the baggage that it brings.
Pittsburgh, Land of the Unknown. Many prefer to call it “The Paris of Appalachia,” but I prefer my name for now.
I find that it’s best if I sit with those feelings — not sit in, but rather sit with. The former implies stagnation, evokes self-pity or while sitting with is an active gesture, a knowing that there is something after the feeling, underneath it to be uncovered; and through that movement is faith, which finds comfort in answers not yet known, but known to be on the way.
The tiredness and the aches do not dictate when my day starts or ends, though I listen to them, telling me when and where my body may need some care or adjustment. Likewise, the loneliness can tell me when I am ready for connection again, when I have something I want to give, though I am not afraid of it; the loneliness itself can be like an old friend, suddenly making blues and country songs make sense again. Like the poet Rumi says in “the Guest House,” these feelings should all be honored guests in our home; even the ones that rob us of our furniture may just be clearing us out for something new.
Luckily, my apartment is furnished, so no new furniture needed.
I’ve decided today that the trip isn’t over. My new place isn’t ready yet, and while I could just bum around Pittsburgh until it is (or nag my landlord, to make sure he hates me going forward), I’m less than two hours from Washington, D.C. — a bit of a foreboding place to be these days, but maybe that makes it more important to experience, not less. I’ll continue my journey to my new home the long way home, and see if the road has anything more to offer.
This blog continues from Part 1 in Seattle to Pitt #8, where I reflect on what advice I’d give to anyone venturing on a long motorcycle road trip.
6. Practice minimalism.
And practice makes perfect, as it was difficult for me at first to travel with three sets of clothes and a tent only big enough to lay down in. Despite the backlash and objections to Marie Kondo and the minimalist movement (which I feel are vague and curmudgeonly), I feel there is great wisdom and looking at a thing you plan on keeping and asking: does this serve a purpose, or spark joy? Have I used it in the last six months? the wisdom of reducing the number of things you carry is literally felt in your bike when on a motorcycle. As space fills quickly between the two saddlebags, the 60-liter backpack, and the space to strap things on the back of the seat, real estate for stuff becomes very valuable. You can choose to carry more if you like, but that makes the backpack heavier, the things you need or want quickly harder to reach, and the mental checklist of things left behind that much longer.
This is definitely not to imply that every item I bring is purely pragmatic — I have in my pack now gifts for friends I’m meeting up with down the road, postcards, a book. See my earlier posts that describe bringing an entire bottle of Kentucky bourbon to Washington. Even though cargo space is precious, if something is worth it I get creative and find a way to bring it along.
For those not used to packing light, I recommend keeping a list of everything you are taking, at least until you have a system down. Don’t pack anything without first writing it down, in which compartment / bag it’s in. When it feels too tedious to do this, this encourages me to pack less.
7. Have a plan and be willing to immediately abandon it
This is mostly just how I live my life. Ever since I was in the Peace Corps, where plucky 20-somethings tackle problems we are arguably unqualified for, I learned how to appease my need to plan while recognizing that things will almost certainly not go to that plan. Teaching a class, meeting with community members, learning a language — all were wrought with unforeseen barriers that, due to my own ignorance, I didn’t even know enough to predict coming. And yet and still, any time I had the opportunity to plan something — a lesson plan for teaching, an itinerary for a trip, a budget for a project — always seemed to help in the long run.
Others came to the same conclusion from different backgrounds.
On other trips, I have even gone so far as to plot out each individual gas station. I don’t anymore since my bike has a fuel gauge (most do not), but even so, I’m Googling for a gas station on my route at approximately the mileage I predict I’ll need it. At other times, I’m looking up what certain icons mean in the owner’s manual (sub-tip: always keep a paper or digital copy of that with you) as the bike does something it’s not supposed to, changing reservations as I’m in a coffeeshop, or changing itineraries as I learn certain friends or events are in a town I’m passing through.
Another name for this tip could be: take contingencies as a given, not a possibility. My itinerary for this trip could have placed me in Pittsburgh on the 22nd (12 days), but I added two to three days of padding for the what-if scenarios. The most stressful motorcycle trips I’ve had are the ones on a strict timetable (e.g., a holiday weekend), as the need to return to work or get to another event removes quite a bit of spontaneity, risk-tolerance and ability to cope with delays — which almost always happen in one way or another.
Back in 2018, this little guy punctured my back tire and certainly changed some plans.
Speaking of which…
8. Problems and obstacles are the norm. Enjoy the trip anyway.
There’s times when my ego gets the better of me, and I feel pretty cool riding a motorcycle on a trip like this one. Shortly after, a series of things will go wrong and I will look like a complete jackass, as I bend over to pick up the earbud that fell out of my helmet, then as I bend over to pick it up my sunglasses fall out of my shirt pocket, then I pull my phone off the table because it’s connected to the external battery in my pocket, then I bump the table with a load noise as my giant backpack swerves behind me, then I curse the day I decided to ride a motorcycle.
None of those things will be seen on Instagram when I post this picture of my meal.
Or, I feel like a fool in front of another ride when I don’t know the specs on my vehicle. Or when I go to buy parts in a store, and I have to look them on Google as I’m shopping for them, only to still buy the wrong sized part. Or when I need to use Google Maps again even for a route I’ve taken or looked over multiple times.
And then, I keep going. I remind myself the simple lesson that it’s okay to make mistakes, that it’s okay to get frustrated, it’s expected, and that setbacks — small, like the ones described above, and large, like the stator not working or a tire being popped by a nail — are part of the journey.
Perhaps one day a challenge will come on a trip like this that truly floors me, but *knock on wood* so far I’ve kept going. Ultimately, they give you the chance to problem solve on the road — I don’t know why, but problems — be they mechanical or otherwise — have always felt easier for me to solve on a bike than on a car.
9. Find the things that make the trip worth it
I’ll say this, even if it’s obvious: whatever makes the trip more joyful — in spite of the discomfort, stress, effort — do that thing. If that means taking detours, go for it. If that means taking scenic country roads, even if they take longer, go for it. If that means going on the interstate in Kansas so that you can rip the throttle complete back, go for it (though I, of course, have never done such a thing). If that means staying in a place another day to rest or sightsee, go for it. If doing yoga on the side of the road helps your back and hips feel better, go for it, weird looks be damned. If it means taking breaks more often, talking to strangers along the way, not talking to anyone along the way, stopping at roadside attractions, pulling over to take a picture, do those things. I have done pretty much each of these things, at some point or another, as the mood struck me for it. As long as it doesn’t endanger you or your bike, I would affirm whatever impulse makes the trip worth taking for you.
Man, these blogs lately seem to just peter out, as I’m up until 1 or 2 AM trying to wrap them up. Maybe next time I’ll try to keep them more simple, in the 500-word range.
Yesterday’s blog implied a Part 2 of tips for a motorcycle road trip, but it’s been a long day of riding, so I’m just making a quick check-in.
A relaxing, comfortable distance for me in a day is usually around 5 hours on the road (not including breaks, fillups and meals), between 250 and 350 miles depending on the terrain. Every now and then, I work in a “flex day,” where I plan more miles on the road than I’d normally do, just for the hell of it, usually through the Plains States where there’s not a lot in between destinations.
Sometimes, not a lot can be quite pretty, though.
Today was supposed to get me from Denver to Kansas City, about 8 hours road time, 600 miles. (A flex for me, though many experienced riders can clock in up to 1,000 in a day.) I got a later start today than usual — with good reason, as I was meeting up with a professor of mine who happened to be in Denver — so even driving into the night, I only made about 500 miles. It was pretty clear at the beginning of the day I wouldn’t make it all the way there, but part of the fun was in seeing how far I’d get.
I rode well after sunset after this one, something I usually avoid doing. However, there is a special feeling to driving across the Plains States in the dark. I did it last time on my 2018 trip through Nebraska, the approximate same point in the journey as today. On that trip, I called this point my dark night of the soul. The infinite dark of the night, rain soaking me on occasion, no cars or landmarks to be seen, high beam lights revealing only more darkness, all of this on a much weaker, less reliable bike — it took everything I had to make it to my motel room in Valentine, Nebraska… which I had already paid for, making the push all the more urgent. It brought me to a place of exhaustion, opening the door for hours of reflection and spiritual awakening.
Can’t stop, won’t stop
I not-so-unconsciously set this trip up to be similar, and yet this time, I didn’t have my dark night of the soul. The hours of driving felt light today. I felt light, even when driving through the dark, even when exhausted. I can think of at least a few things that could explain it, but for now, I’m just happy to have enjoyed the experience.
Anyway, I’m feeling slaphappy with road fatigue, so here’s two other pictures of note, with no tie-in or segue happening:
I have a disgusting tradition on stretches like this of seeing how many bugs accumulate on my helmet. It’s a thing, folks. It’s quite the Jackson Pollock on my face tonight:
The desecration, the carnage, the horror
Secondly, I saw something that was on the face of it not that bizarre, yet caught my interest: three little kitties loafing around the gas station I was filling up at.
Just doesn’t seem like a place cats would like to hang out, you know?
In SLC, I met a young guy in the hostel I stayed in who asked me if I was living “that motorcycle life.” I tell him yes, though quickly realize he thinks I actually live on the motorcycle, nowhere else to call home. (I supposed that is temporarily true, so I didn’t correct him.) He nodded in admiration, said “I want to do that that too. I’ve got a housing voucher, but I don’t want to be in Utah my whole life. I think I’ll go back to Tacoma, where I’m from.”
The Seattle area – where I just came from.
I just tell him to make sure he reads up on where he’s going and that he brings good gear. It doesn’t seem like a particularly great idea in his case — the social worker in me cringes at the thought of giving up on a housing voucher — but who knows, ultimately it may be good for him.
It then made me reflect: maybe there’s others considering a trip like this one. If he were actually going to do this, what advice would I have for him — for anyone making this journey?
I thought of eight major guidelines, outside of specific techniques or preferences that most folks will pick up from other riders or on their own.
First, a caveat: This advice may not work for everyone. Some riders can’t stand having a backpack on, or wearing the gear I wear, or not having more gear than I wear — and that’s ok. To clarify, my experience of long tours has always been with cruisers, up until now, with a scrambler. Much of the below advice on minimalism and economy, for example, might not apply if you use a touring bike with three large storage compartments. A scrambler is, admittedly, not a natural choice for a long-form trip, and my stamina on it is admittedly lower than even on a cruiser, and much lower than what it might be on a touring bike. However, I commute on my motorcycle, and riding daily in the city with a touring bike is, in my opinion, cumbersome — it’s really only best suited for touring, and unless you’re ok commuting on it or you have the disposable income for multiple vehicles, you might opt to do what I do and go with the bike you have.
Essentially, any bike is a touring bike if you believe in yourself. 😀
Even after Googling, still not sure what “Hemlocking” is. More research is needed on this sign on I-70. .
Do your research, research, research, research
If you’re camping, research survival techniques. If you’re staying in seedy areas, research ways to keep your bike safe (they aren’t terribly hard to steal and vandalize), as well as yourself. Plan your general route, and research what climates you will pass through.
Driving through mountains? Make sure you can handle the cold on a motorcycle, and how to bundle up appropriately (the wind chill can drop the temperature as much as 40 degrees F, in my experience). Driving through desert? Make sure you know ways to keep both yourself and your bike cool, and how to make shade for yourself if you break down in the desert. Driving through forests or low-coverage areas? Either commit the route to memory or download your route on Google Maps.
It behooves you, as well, to seek out recommendations from folks on cities beforehand — something I’ve learned from this trip in particular. I’ve had some great experiences notwithstanding, but I could have leaned on my contacts more to curate the experience more thoughtfully.
Know, for example, when your phone camera has a smudge on the lens inside the cover, making it a feature of every photograph. Yep, if you haven’t noticed already…
2. Know thy equipment
I meant what I told the kid in SLC. While it is feasible to simply get on a bike with a knapsack and nothing else, I personally wouldn’t bet the quality of my trip, my bike, or my own life on the hope it all works out. If there are those that do, hats off to you, and feel free to share your experiences. The most essential items I carry:
– camping gear, in the event I want to save money by camping, am unable to get a room for any reason, or just feel like camping. I never camp in anything I haven’t opened and tested first. Pitching a tent on a nearby park showed me there weren’t enough stakes to tie it down effectively; I then threw water on it to determine whether it needed a tarp for rain protection (it did), so I bought a tarp. I also tried out my lamps, slept in my sleeping bag the week before the trip to make sure it was liveable; etc.
– basic maintenance items for the motorcycle, including a tire patch kit, tools to change the oil (though not the oil itself — too bulky), and a standard set of biker’s tools. In the past, when my bike at the time needed it, I even brought a drip charger. It saved me from being stranded in the Cascade Mountains at night, with no signal, with no lights and no shoulder on the road after the stator stopped charging the battery.
The point is to know your bike. Know what pressure you like the tires at, know what . None of this is terribly technical; I am very far from being a motorcycle mechanic. Most of what I know is either basic maintenance you could do at the side of the road or what I know from my experience riding. And more importantly, know your gear — you have to think of your bike and the gear attached to it as the same thing. Ask yourself: will my bike ride differently with 50, 100, or more poundsof gear attached to it?
These
3. Make a practice run
Before setting out on a 500 mile + journey, there’s no better way to see if you’re prepared than by a trip closer to home. There’s lots oof little pieces of advice I can pepper through here, but it ultimately comes down to hundreds of little factoids that you learn along the way.
My practice run before this trip was around the Olympic Peninsula, visiting the Hoh Rainforest. In the hottest week in Seattle on record, I learned on this trip how to stay cool, at what pace I could go in a day, how to effectively pack the gear on the bike, etc.
This picture does not capture how ridiculously hot it was
I would point out, as well, that the experience of a long-form road trip is simply different than riding about town. It requires a different kind of vigilance, sometimes against traffic and unfamiliar streets, but sometimes against your mind wandering on a long stretch of road. Give yourself a chance to find your “sea legs” on a long trip.
4. Think of you, your bike, and your gear as one unit.
The gear you pack can be a precarious mix of things – mine is almost always held down with bungee cords, cargo nets, and cinch-belts in a carefully designed structure. Every piece of gear should count (see my next post on minimalism), and thus, losing or misplacing any of it could be disastrous, or at least ruin the quality of your trip. You’re not going anywhere without a functioning bike, and you’re gonna have a bad time without your gear, and without your stamina and health, the best bike and gear in the world won’t amount to much.
Your body has to be in synergy with the setup of your gear. Going with a setup that causes physical strain, even if tolerable for a while, means you’ll eventually turn in sooner than you would have otherwise. Even if there’s something that’s simply annoying – a strap blowing in the wind, a vibrating sound of something touching the gas tank – if it bothers you, it will eventually wear you down quicker. The challenge is part of the fun, but not at the expense of efficiency.
For example: If the backpack you’re using creates too much strain on your shoulders, find a way to support it with other objects, such as a coat or sleeping bag tied to the back. If your saddlebag holds more (or looks cooler) closer to the bike, that’s great, unless they touch the exhaust or engine and burn through them. (This actually happened to me once, and I later used heat-resistant fabric into it to cope, with mixed results.) If your bike has to work harder because your setup isn’t aerodynamic, see if you can rearrange things. And so on.
5. Get. Roadside. Assistance.
Just do it, man. It’s so not worth the risk of not having it. I haven’t used it since my cross-country trip in 2018, but man did it save my ass the two times I needed it.
AAA, Geico, Farmers, whatever you choose to use — just get it.
More to come, but it’s getting late, and I need my biker beauty sleep for the long, long day I have planned tomorrow.
The elk jerky, raised and seasoned in the Us of A; Foster’s beer, imported from Australia. Something feels even more American about that than an American beer.
The hook was too good; signs posted every half mile or so, separate long enough to keep you wondering, scrawled
“Hungry?”
“We have jerky”
“Real Good Meat”
“Stop ahead”
I’m glad I was paying attention, or any one of those signs in isolation would have been confusing, possibly concerning.
What was most impressive was that they did this twice, on separate ends of a small Colorado town; the first one just to pique your interest, then make you look concerningly, as it just never seems to come. Even if you’re made of stone, you have to wonder: what became of the good meat?
That’s my dinner tonight, as I “camp” at a KOA. Seen them on the sides of roads for some time now, always wondered what they were like. Now I know: a Disney-fied version of camping.
This mini-golf is really ruining the Americana mystique of this road trip.
Eh, at $35 a night, I’ve stayed in worse. (Like the hostel I was just at in SLC. a story for another day.)
Down the street was the county fair, which just so happened to be going on as I was in town. I popped in for a bit, and initially a warm feeling of nostalgia came over me. County fairs are like traveling temples to nostlgia. It looked similar to the ones I went to as a child, a strange connection, half a country away and a quarter of a century; an unexpected something that in the era of change hasn’t changed. Of course, as an adult, I see through a different lens than when I was eight. The adults who are fighting, sublty or not. The flat faces of the workers. The disaffected teenagers, who are far too cool for this but are simply here for something to do.
Every town smaller than 100,000 people is required by law to have these.
I remember that feeling, too. Jesus, the things I did in Owensboro, KY simply because there was nothing better to do.
I pass through places like this on road trips and wonder if I shouldn’t just move somewhere like here, or just here, even. City life is anonymous, distant, hectic; why don’t I just leave it all behind? But eventually, the baggage I left in my own mid-sized town catches up with me. I imagine the nostalgia / romanticization of a place and the length of time staying in that place has a relationship something like a bell curve. No, more like a Weibull distribution.
Figure 1: How over it I am. X = hours, not days.
It’s easy to imagine “small towns” in the mysterious or nostalgic sense. Greasy spoon pie places, too far for health inspectors to check on regularly. Gas pumps with hand cranks and analog tickers, instead of screens. While I have stopped at places like this along the way, the population is almost always below a thousand. Populations of over 50,000, as Grand Junction is, may have them but they are tucked away behind the litany of chain restaurants. A town like that is too big to be a small town, too small to be a big city.
Again, I am certainly projecting my own baggage here. Grand Junction, CO conjures Owensboro, KY for me: both are the prototypal American town, Middle-of-the-roadsville, population appx 58,000, which is small enough that nothing too crazy happens but big enough that it doesn’t have the interpersonal dynamics of a truly “small town” (e.g. pop < 5000). One does not have the promise of anonymity, as in a city, but not the promise of friends at every corner, as in a small town; only a promise that somebody, somewhere will vaguely recognize you as you try to sneak in and out of an errand in sweat pants and shower sandals. Cultured enough to know what you’re missing, but plain enough to give side eye to anyone different, or anyone reading a book alone in a cafe, or playing a video game in public.
Am I right, guys?
I feel like I’m being somewhat harsh on this place, aren’t I? These mid-sized towns offer their own experience and obviously are attractive to a large number of people. Well, I suppose it isn’t entirely fair, but this blog won’t be affecting the tourist industry of anywhere anytime soon. There is something I’m trying to process here, but it’s getting late, and a thesis is nowhere in sight.
Besides, I had an absolute blast here for Go Fest 2021, in the two parks that had any decent Pokéstops. The Starbucks where I ate my breakfast and charged my batteries was perfectly serviceable.
The real benefit is being close to places outside of any kind of town:
Tomorrow brings me to a major city, Denver, where I look forward to meeting a handful of old friends and making memories.
Man, you guys. Listen. Let me tell you something. You know what I love?
Pokemón Go.
If you thought I was gonna say motorcycles, or traveling, of philosophical bullshit, that would make sense. And you’d be right on all counts. But today, I love Pokemón.
Listen. I am a really big nerd. Like, if it’s nerdy I’m probably into it. And I really love being a nerd. Specifically, I’ve always loved Pokemón, and when quarantine hit I got hard into Pokemón Go and never looked back.
So I’m here on this road trip across America, challenging myself to write about my thoughts, experiences and connections. But today was Day 1 of Pokemón Go Fest, a global event with new mons and events and people playing everywhere, including Grand Junction CO. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let a little thing like philosophy or a cross country road trip or starting a new life in Pittsburgh stop me from catching some cartoon monsters in a game made for children.
Cuz sometimes, even on the road, you just gotta do you.
So that’s what I did today, and it’s why I don’t have anything to write about today. Except my shinies I caught. And you guys don’t wanna read that.
…
I caught so many Pokemón, you guys. Not even playing rn.
I often wonder on the road what more old school bikers, who have made this same journey across the US in decades past, would think of the way I navigate my trips with a smartphone. I used to carry maps, “just in case” the phone ever stopped working or ran out of battery; now I just carry an extra external battery.
My generation marks the last that will remember a world before high-speed internet and smartphones, and I do remember the rituals of a road trip as a child, involving many, many maps, with careful plotting beforehand, the occasional surprise when not finding something the map indicated, the passenger seat rider functioning designating the role of the navigator. Nothing is, in theory, stopping me from navigating my trip sans GPS, but despite my talk of irrational labor in Seattle to Pitt #4, I have limits to how much artificial difficulty I will impose on myself. I definitely keep Google Maps on the majority of the ride, as well as Spotify through my wireless earbuds. It’s just… too convenient to do otherwise.
The way in which this alters road trips most profoundly, outside of the rituals of map-checking, is the room it allowed for wandering, for forging your own path. GPS is specifically designed for the most efficient path (and thank God for that), though it removes that path-finding aspect. Even when I get low on gas, a quick pull-over and search for the nearest gas station has always saved me from running out. I certainly allow myself some room for wandering on my trips, yet a destination is always what drives me forward. I love riding, yet rarely do I ride with no particular destination in mind. Even if the destination is arbitrary, I prefer to akways have one in mind. Maybe GPS has conditioned me this way.
Contrast this preference for destination-centered traveling with my meandering, non-committal religious beliefs.
This is my motorcycle segue into religion, intuition, and choice-making, and I’m sticking with it.
Spoiler alert: While my beliefs, too, are always being unsurfaced and built upon, I did not convert to Mormonism on this trip.
This trip has made me aware of just how much I owe to friends for my personal growth. In addition to the friend from Kentucky I met yesterday, there’s two more old friends who feature heavily in this day’s reflections.
Recently I called a friend of mine (who I’ll be meeting in St. Louis!), one whose opinions, despite differing from mine on the surface, I deeply respect; this friend, intelligent beyond belief, is one of the wisest and most well-read people that I know. We talked about his religious beliefs, long a point of difference and discussion between us, and how they have evolved since we last spoke: still Christian, just in a different denomination. I then told him about my own spiritual journey, how I have wanted to explore religious feelings and community again, yet how difficult it is for me to simply embrace a belief that defies explanation.
He explained that his belief in the resurrection of Christ is a thing he chooses to believe, despite his otherwise scientifically oriented thinking. In that way, it seemed to me more like an act of will than a logical conclusion, though from that belief other beliefs then follow logically. That central premise is a human thing he allows himself, because human beings believe things; no amount of intellect or evidence or debate will change that because it presupposes it. I feel that, I shared, but I don’t know what I would say to someone who asked me point-blank if I believed Jesus rose from the dead. He responded with a hypothetical: let’s say someone were to ask what we would literally see if we could stand outside the tomb of Jesus through a time machine, he would answer: “I’m not going to answer that because it’s a fundamentalist question.” Even if coming from an atheist — many of whom are ex-fundamentalists, as they are the ones most likely to de-convert — the preoccupation with literal, objective reality echoes a fundamentalist epistemology.
That resonated with me, and was something that I needed to hear. I may or may not need to accept the same beliefs my friend does, but the idea that I can accept some things on belief — because in the end, you will anyway — was the important lesson.
Flash forward to Temple Square, and the experiences I wrote about in yesterday’s blog. To say the minimum possible, that is quite a number of beliefs on display.
Pictured: a lot of belief.
Today I found myself in a similar conversation with a different friend, a friend I knew from my Peace Corps service — this after spending the better part of the day in Temple Square learning about Mormonism. We have one of those good conversations, the ones that meander but with purpose, that flows with a life of its own; what Gadamer called a fusing of horizons. While meandering quite a bit, certain themes stuck out to me the most.
I tell her about my day in the Temple, about what I was thinking of as I passed through — and I tell her about the conversation with my friend in St. Louis. I was raised with the more central tenets to Christianity, yet I already find it difficult to get behind the idea that a man named Jesus was the Messiah, that he performed miracles, died and rose again; but Mormonism adds unearthed golden tablets, and Jesus visiting South America, and a living prophet chosen by God, and a host of other things that, taken together, feel like an overwhelming number of things to swallow. While I am ready to accept the notion of belief in and of itself, not every belief is a welcome port of harbor.
Neat statue, just not for me.
And that’s okay. “Your intuition is the thing that you will need to make the choice of what religious community you join or don’t,” she assures me.
Intuition: difficult to think about, the form of knowing that precedes thinking. Intuition is a muscle, we agree, that like any other, can be strengthened with use or atrophies without it, and how for certain people this stems from an over-reliance on the intellect, a trait rewarded in modern society. We talk about how a person like that would have trouble ever deciding what they want, about how such an imbalance would overwhelm one with anxiety, as the intellect can outline any number of choices but cannot decide one on anything other than pragmatism (which is ultimately still a belief.) “That would be a very anxiety-provoking way to live,” she says.
I can confirm from experience that it definitely is.
I fear intuition for deeper reasons, as well: it is unpredictable, potentially disruptive, and can push us to a crisis. I share with her an old saying I once heard: “Dread the passing of Christ, for he does not pass again.”
This one in particular wasn’t going anywhere today.
It can take a more literal meaning to a Christian, but easily enough takes a metaphorical meaning for any major opportunity, risk, or moment that we allow to pass us by: when the moment of truth is upon us, it is possible that we can miss it entirely. When taken in the context of the story of the gospel, it takes an additional meaning: when we make that leap, it more often than not disrupts our lives. All that we have worked for up to that point may have to be abandoned. When we give up our lives as fishermen and follow our truth, what becomes of our nets and boats? Does anyone ever wonder if the apostles left behind their families, communities that bought their fish, friends who missed them, hungry children that depended on them, endeavors they had made?
We talk about how we enjoy connecting again, how valuable meeting old friends is. Among the many things they provide, old friends, particularly ones we have connected with deeply, give mile markers to our growth. When I am with someone from my past, for a brief moment, I become that person I was when I last connected with them. Whether that experience is pleasant or not, it prompts an important reflection: “Wow, I guess I am still that person,” or “Wow, I was that person, but I’m not anymore.” While departing from friends is difficult it is the only way we can meet them again.
Definitely not that guy anymore. Note the head of hair, the lip ring, the faux-hardcore persona.
This is not an essay and I have no thesis; I do not know what to make of Mormons, of sisters who would argue archaeology, of those who stay in the LDS church, of those who leave, of those in-between. Perhaps that attempt at knowing is what fundamentalism is at its core: the attempt to make personal truth objective truth, thereby honoring neither. In my decision to follow coincidences, to build intuition, I am learning to avoid explaining myself, to not undermine a personal truth with argument and facticity. Solitude provides the training wheels necessary to Intuition took me this far, brought me on this journey cross-country (and the last one),
I believe there is a reason that so many religions promote journeys, missions, quests: the literal movement through space and time embodies a the more subtle movement of our inner growth. I suspect that, on some level, it doesn’t truly matter what kind of journey a pilgrim is on, or where they are going, or even why. That’s what these trips across America feel like at times: a pilgrimage, to an unknown god, to land at an unknown shrine, for an unknown treasure to be found. Here’s to another day on that pilgrimage done.
Nature and Nurture 