Middle Aged Motorcycling

The open road, the kids left behind

I wrote this article last year for the inaugural edition of a local Wenatchee magazine. Some of you know my son; he's come a long way in four years, but the Marine Corps has a way of doing that to young men.

My passion for two-wheeled adventures began a few years before our son left home, and the feelings of freedom the sport engendered has become ever sweeter after the nest was emptied. The lure of the open road—the urge to leave all one’s earthly possessions behind—is often associated with the young. Ironically, the ability to fulfill these dreams are often not possible until we’ve wrapped up the business of parenting and are reasonably sure that our offspring will survive without us.

I took up the sport of motorcycling when it was reasonably certain that our son would be able to fend for himself should the worst befall one or the other of us. For a few years while he was at home, it was a sport and a passion that my husband and I shared with him. However, when he abruptly joined the US Marine Corps after finishing high school and nearly two years of college, I was surprised at the intensity of the feelings of freedom I felt. Suddenly, my motorcycle took on an entire new significance. It was a tangible talisman of freedom that I would come to depend on most intensely in the summer of 2004, which was to prove tumultuous.

The signs had been coming on gradually: either my husband or I would observe to our youngest son that the sun was known to rise in the east. He would sullenly and stubbornly assert that the opposite was true. He would take his car (his symbol of freedom) and vanish for unaccountably long periods of time. He began to do poorly in school as his graduation became imminent.

I’m probably not the only person to conclude that the behavior of your average teenager is nature’s way of ensuring that parents won’t regret their departure from the nest. What surprised me is that, increasingly, I had visions of running away from home myself.
My husband and I found our refuge in riding. Whether it was for a day to Chelan or two weeks to the American southwest, striding our motorcycles gave us an outlet and an escape from these troublesome teen-aged years. As I would pack up the bike for any excursion be it 20 miles or 2,000, I was surprised by the intense desire to divest myself of all the detritus collected in nearly 50 years of living and survive on only those items that could be strapped to the back of the bike.

Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics, “I went out for a ride and I never went back” became a recurrent mental theme song during our son’s last summer at home. We prepared for a precious two week tour of the American southwest, just my husband and I, dividing our camping gear between the two motorcycles and leaving our son under the watchful eye of a neighbor to finish the final classes required for graduation.

One of the key benefits of piloting a motorcycle is this: in order to ride safely, one cannot be distracted, and the sport is involving enough: scanning the road ahead for oncoming traffic, checkingthe pavement for tar snakes (omnipresent in Utah and New Mexico and slippery as all get-out) or gravel, watching out for animals or simply holding the bike steady in a buffeting cross wind, a constant companion on this particular tour.
We passed through some of the most spectacular scenery to be found in the continental United States and, unlike auto touring, the vistas could be enjoyed on all four sides, while the scent of the piňon pines rose in the heat of the day.

Winds turned from gusty to dusty in the southernmost part of Utah, forcing us to crawl down a highway resembling a Depression-era dustbowl. We took refuge in a motel room in the spectacular Monument Valley, completely obscured by rolling dust.
The next morning, in desperation, I consulted a Navajo medicine man to intercede with whatever wind gods ruled that place. He spun a tale, observing that winds were the spirits of the dead. No charms warding off the winds were available, though I did buy a turquoise necklace as blue as the now dust-free skies as a keepsake.

Other disasters dogged us as the road unwound. South of Canyon de Chelly, a low-flying bird impaled itself on the throttle of my motorcycle. Looking in my rear-view mirrors, I saw nothing but a cloud of feathers. Later on the same trip, yet another bird would swoop down into my path, living to fly another day. I began to feel as though I was in a surreal re-make of Hitchcock’s memorable movie.

Some days were picture-perfect: retracing portions of old US Route 66, noting remnants of urban archaeology and taking turns standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. However, the final days of our tour would bring us much closer to our own mortality.

Highway 95 connects the state of Idaho from the basalt floodplains of the south to the remote and mountainous panhandle. For all its remoteness, after nearly two weeks on the road, the tree-lined road felt like home. We weren’t to travel it without incident.
Between McCall and Riggins, a deer leaped out of the underbrush at just the wrong time. Perhaps I was thinking ahead, perhaps I failed to think as I rounded the curve in the road to find my husband’s bike stopped square in the middle. Suddenly I crashed into the rear of his bike, knocking him to the ground. All of a sudden, the lustre of the open road lost its gleam. With the aid of a good samaritan, I picked the bike off my husband and we limped home.

We’d left our troubles behind for a while—and collected a few new ones. Repairs to the bikes would be made, and eventually, repairs to my husband’s fragile neck bones as well. We would live to see our son leave the house he grew up in, unshaven and scraggly, and return a clean-cut, well-muscled and extremely polite Marine. The road of his life would now go on without us, with its own burdens, obligations and dangers. Our roads would now be filled with freedom and memories of the road ahead and the parenting behind.

The shock of our son’s sudden departure into manhood has worn off, and the joys of the open road are now unmixed (in fine weather). I abandoned my large cruiser for a lighter, faster motorcycle—one with better braking power —and scan my road for obstacles in view. They’re always there, but they make the journey onward that much more exhilarating.