Looking Back

In the world of motorcycling, the Iron Butt Association has some notoriety. You can become a member by riding 1,000 miles in 24 hours. But the best-known event is the Iron Butt Rally, in which participants ride at least 11,000 miles in 11 days ("safely," the web site says) while reaching specific checkpoints. Stories of brain-scrambled riders doing weird stuff abound.

Which brings me to my point. I love motorcycling. I look at those Iron Butt guys and think, "Yeah, let's take something we love, and do it until we hate it."

I liked my trip. I didn't overdo. In that last week, after I went farther east than I originally intended and had to zoom back across the country for Mother's Day, I was riding a little more grimly than I did at first, just hoping to dodge the weather and get some miles in each day. Even so, I enjoyed watching the country flow by me.

So, first impression: this is a big country. There is a lot of room out there; it's not all built up. There's a lot going on. Every region has its own unique features, but the constant presence of national chain stores and restaurants in larger towns and cities was either reassuring or, depending on your point of view, depressing. I would say the pivotal states on the trip were Texas and Oklahoma, where you can be in pure desert on one end of the state and in wet, green country on the other end.

The roadsides were cleaner than I remember from earlier decades. My excursion to Puerto Palomas in Mexico, opposite Columbus, New Mexico, reminded me of how frightfully bad public trash can be in Mexico. In contrast, it was hard to find litter on the sides of U.S. highways. This might be a testimony to the success of all those "Adopt a Highway" litter collection efforts. More power to 'em.

A lot of people stay where they were planted. I guess I could plead guilty to that, too – I've moved around Southern California some but not beyond that. People get comfortable with their little circles, with the rules and conditions that govern where they live. Should they move? Maybe everyone should, just to gain some understanding of the things they had been taking for granted.

Where would I go? In my travels I found that I was drawn to water. The abundance of streams and lakes, especially east of the Mississippi, just fascinated me. And yet, as I rode back through New Mexico and the mesas of the Navajo and the Zuni, I felt a kinship with that land too – and there isn't much water there; that's for sure. There's no one place that fulfills all my needs.

Would I take another long trip like this one on a motorcycle? It's probably too soon to answer that. During the trip I came up with a long list of reasons why the trip would make more sense in a car. But I do love riding. I suspect that I'll do shorter trips on the bike in the future and try to loop my girlfriend into another long trip by car. I didn't camp on this trip; I could barely carry my small amount of gear as it was, much less camping gear. But a car would make it practical to bring camping gear.

I'm a few years from retirement yet. I took this trip partly because I didn't know how long my health would allow me to do stuff like that. For a long time, I hope. When I retire I will take a serious look at doing some more unstructured roaming, free to spend a lot of time in spots that I take a liking to. That will make me feel like a rich man, in spirit.